Frog Princes

Who knows what kind of spurious magic
Turns a lowbrow life form (say, a fish)
Into a frog, a sort of prince
That hops around making swell mudcroak sounds
To delight an old rattlejoint wizard like me.
Fondle the frog. Not as slippery, note,
As finnier fare; not as fair
As a bunny or puppy, either,
But those who have plunged to the bottommost rungs
Of the glamour ladder
Cannot expect cute! We should be glad
For a few charmed moments,
Infrequent as they may be,
Before the spell runs its natural course,
When the prince sheds its skin (it was only a frog!)
And returns to its pond as a fickle fish.