Even in summer, it is difficult to think of cane toads abiding in Helsinki.

In this Nordic city, flies are scarce. I can’t imagine an amphibian predator

beefing up sufficiently to hibernate through winter, even if the freeze

did not still its heart, that pump sometimes stolen, in lust for vivisection,

by Australian water rats that carve out the organs with surgical precision.

They gorge, they scurry, large as cats, from the river banks after the floods.
Beekeepers struggle to recover when toads invade hives following floods.

Mackay is a sugar town built on a swamp. That much it shares with Helsinki,

where bees may be kept in parks. Bears lack the necessary skill, precision,

to extract honey safely. The Eurasian jay remains the chief bee predator.

Stung bears yowl like cats waking from ether while undergoing vivisection.

Bears are not to be crossed when feeding, laying on fat before the freeze.
Back in Mackay, the hunters bag the toads to take them home to freeze.

Some drive at them with golf clubs. Divots rise from tees soft after floods,

but toads have been known to land live on par three greens. Vivisection

is frowned upon by the ethics committee of the University of Helsinki,

but desperate measures prevail against the toad that poisons all predators

other than the water rat. Pleasure derived by some is practiced precision.
Introduction of the toad, presumed to focus diet, with exclusive precision,

on the cane beetle, was a blunder causing those bold agronomists to freeze,

too late to backtrack, to reverse their SUVs across the cane toad predator

plague released on native fauna, rafted across the country by the floods.

Away on the other side of the world, at the end of summer in Helsinki,

I dream of execution. Unconstrained, toad in hand, I opt for vivisection.
How the toad inspires sufficient hatred for those who abhor vivisection

to lose their scruples can best be understood studying the art of precision

archery. Placing a shaft between the shoulders is prohibited in Helsinki,

and is an illegal discharge of a firearm (unless the archer shouts “Freeze!”)

even in suburban Brisbane, that city so severely ravaged by the floods

that brought toads as big as dinner plates to feed their water rat predator.
For Australians, feral cats rate second to the toad as most hated predator

of native fauna, and it was toads and cats that were subject to vivisection

in physiology experiments, in medical schools, before activists, in floods

of indignation against poor, cruel science, lacking in purposeful precision,

through the Animal Care and Protection Act 2001, brought about a freeze

on vivisection in Queensland, which is not in any way relevant to Helsinki.
Ranidaphobic, the predator travels, seeking refuge and solace in Helsinki,

dreams amphibian vivisection, contemplates winter cold enough to freeze

the Queensland floods, gives thanks for physicians with skill and precision.