Toad deities, waiting like cheesecake and midnight.

Whoever worships a God of doves and candles has never 
held a toad and felt it's belly-drum- pocket watch
tell you that it's midnight-- that
no one was ever late to anything. They blink
like the careful closing of a change purse--
wink quarters on the ground for their followers 
and give blessings of rain and rotted cardboard 
smell in the morning when you wake up 
in a film of rain-- scratch your toad skin
and remember when you had wanted to breathe
water like a bullfrog-- Don't trust bullfrogs-- 
They have learned to eat birds-- crush flight
like spilled quarters or the snapped wax neck
of a candle--  I can't tell you when I 
was first converted to believing in Toads--
but it might have been when we lived on Main Street
In the house by the park that felt like a slice
of cheese cake-- wax-paper wedged between the other 
townhouses-- all slouchy roofed from the raspberry sauce 
and the squirrel nests. My father and I sat on the porch.
There was a moth tangled lamp and a red sand bucket of Toads. 
My father taught me how to hold God-- gentle
and patient like the filling of warm water balloons--
counting down the minutes left until midnight 
on their stomachs-- hum to you to hurry up and slow
down before they burst into thunder and morning
-- we forget how fragile God is 
and how much like slice of cheese cake he waits for us.
From the porch we fed them mealworms for sacrifice
or penance for use of the red sand bucket.
I peeled loose jeans that night by the window 
and wondered if the Toads were still there below
the thicket of moths or if they had moved on--
made burial in the lawn like tulip bulbs or
jars of quarters-- more quiet than doves or
candles and muttering quietly beneath the soil
their benedictions for our days to come--
it is the Toads who have always prayed for us.
And the next rain they come back like a Sunday--
far and round and somehow always walking home
-- resurrect themselves with worm-full mouths
and tightly wound abdomens from which we
can count out the minutes left 
till midnight when we forget about the squirrel 
nests and pray to the Gods of rotted cardboard 
and cheesecake ticking in the rain.