I was the odd man out, that day in June, 
for the visit to Mary Brown's island garden. 
The ladies had a henfest on their minds, 
Martha explained, and anyway 

the little Honda Jazz of Mrs. Grace 
could only hold four bodies. I might have made 
a gender joke there, on the Isle of Man,  
as to feminine companionship, but for 
imps that scrabbled at my inner gates;
their weight and acrid bite had turned me    
     slightly heartsore  
and by-the-way shut down my usual zest 
for feeble jests. 

Truth was, I felt a wee bit out of sorts; 
unappreciated, in a word. And so 
I fed that craving with joys of solitude.     
With make-do kitchen gear, I baked rough peasant bread,
and I promenaded by the Irish Sea, 
its distant surf line crashing on the shingle     
calling and rebuffing indistinguishably. 

Under the northern summer sun I doffed my travel vest 
and practiced slow tai chi in a little seaside park 
where bronze plaques hailed various local Manxmen 
who died in nearby fires. I stepped and swirled 
to the heart-glad clopclopclop of percherons 
hauling antique trams along the boulevard. 

And it worked: at day's end I was better, 
more content—until my envy rose 
at hearing how the ladies got to meet 
the little spotted frog of Mary Brown's 
that lived beneath a square of roofing-slate  
in a pocket on her garden path. 
How often, over years, I'd put spring peepers 
into my own small pond behind the house, 

some from local streams, and some brought down 
the mount from distant Shasta, boxed in cool moss 
packed among suitcases, through the tired 
southbound weekend traffic. Many a night 
I've nursed the hope of hearing the little amphibians’ 
forlorn and cheery song in soothing darkness. 
But you know what, none ever stayed around.     
Not one.