How lovely, the eyes of a lizard, so keen and honest Like those of this common fence lizard, the one who has just now tilted his head at an angle, so as better to behold me He gazes, making some appraisal of my character, for what must be a long time in the life of a lizard, then he turns his body toward the sun and sets back to his original instructions How strange and old it is, this yearning in me to be held long in the gaze of another, to by gaze be judged worthy of quiet company, of silently sharing this old porch in the afternoon light How often are such yearnings unmet, simply by forgetting? Forgetting, to give this world, and all its creatures, the modest effort of attention
When I wake to see you stoking the coals in your underthings, feeding a log to the fire with your stout and lovely hands, which make so much of nothing, and you turn, smiling, and come to lay, somehow, despite all odds, beside me, my heart can do nothing but this fine surrender
In dream, in the desert day, my child self comes bearing a hatchling snake, its pattern half mottled and half striped I take his hands in mine, show him the way to become one with serpent, to become the substrate, so as not to grasp, so as to guide and let glide Kneeling down we place it in the rocks and a second snake appears, black with a single white stripe along its spine, a single white dot on its head, another hatchling In waking, my blood lingers with the electricity of a serpent in the hands, with the soft power to hold, to let go, to heal