Resting on her chin,
Crocadolly watched
the last squad car drive off,
silent as a hearse.
It wasn't often that a single-engine plane,
tired of the sky, and thinking
(incorrectly) it could land on muck or worse
without much sinking,
gave it such a try.

Dolly, second of the first five reptiles to arrive,
never reckoned as she raced across the bog
she'd be in time to see
three faces through the plexi
- two human and one dog -
all looking scared, but very much alive.

Until came Rockadial, lured
from lazing in the sun
with his close chum, an alligator bird,
to crack the cockpit with his jaws
as easily as crunching crayfish claws,
and pull the white meat out;

her share, following the crocofrenzy,
one pair of lady's lips bent in a smile
(or were they upside down
and meant to be a frown?),
plus half an arm,
a hand with ring-finger intact,
but minus its gold band.
(That Rockadial!)

Her dopey meal got Crocadolly thinking
how thick and dark
the waters thereabouts were getting,
swamps and bogs all stinking of decay,
fish and frogs so hard to find
that crocs were forced to ruminate
on dogs and humankind.

The blame, of course,
lay at the feet of Crockafeller,
slimelord don of half the crocomafioso
in the county and beyond,
well connected in D.C.
with legislators dancing to the tunes
of crocs and alligators
bearing gold doubloons,
not to mention well-paid lobbyists
most willing to bear false witness
(favoring of course big business)
against the better interests
of their kind.

Crocadolly sighed.
What Swamptown needed
was a democratically elected
crocohero, not some fella
seeking private gain,
or prone at any moment
to be struck
by two-ton truck
or gravy train.