Sitting beside my letterbox, a large and elderly frog, slack-bellied and scarce a pulse beneath its double chin. Even so I scoop it up. Life stirs its porous skin. River weeds trail weepily, the banks softened by rain that fell last week so heavily the very sky collapsed beneath its weight. When I am dying, carry me down to this same river. Let the water do its work. Let time shuck off my human form and return me to the fish-scaled thing that I once was; begin.   Lisa Jacobson