Nocturne

[RiverNotch]

Crickets sing with their legs,
frogs sing with their breasts,
cicadas sing with their wings,
bats sing with their mouths --

lovers sing with all their parts.

[dukealien]

Crickets sing with their legs,
frogs sing with their breasts,
cicadas sing with their wings,
bats sing with their mouths --

lovers sing with all their parts.

Very nice.  As a second bounce of interpretation, one could reflect that all the animals mentioned are lovers (would-be, anyway).  I'd say frogs sing with their briskets, but it's not a very romantic or humanoid part (g).

And birds sing with the syrinx, but aside from having no human equivalent they're all asleep... except perhaps the night heron.

Thanks for posting!

[Achebe]

Crickets sing with their legs,
frogs sing with their breasts,
cicadas sing with their wings,
bats sing with their mouths --

lovers sing with all their parts.

The payoff isn't quite that satisfying.
Perhaps you could mix it up a bit, eg. Crickets sing with their legs / frogs with the breasts / cicadas wings / bats mouths / lovers / with all their parts.
I also think that the list of things that sing starts to tire after 'cicadas'. If you could keep it to 'cicadas wings / and mouths' that'd be nice, but wouldn't make sense....so I can't suggest an alternative at the moment.

[Solstice]

If read out loud the first time, it's perfect. It's called poetry, by way of the em dash being part and parcel of penned writing, and not necessarily typing.

[RiverNotch]

Thanks for the feedback. I think I'll keep the list: this is, in terms of voice, a sort of take on those Ancient Egyptian poems Liz posted earlier, or perhaps that translation of the Descent of Inanna I once read -- either way, primitive, repetitive, and syntactically (but not poetically) complete.

[j4austin]

Ah....the music of the evening...a nocturne...
too romantic a song for the simplistic terminology of the body parts listed.  
the idea is strong...nocturne and lovers songs...a few tweaks with synonyms
or a little biological research on wiki perhaps

j4