reptilian verse

 Five Lizards                     

1. Benidorm 1966

It could let go its tail if caught.

Fat siesta sun full

on my back, I kept still, held

myself invisible, in love

with its dry archaeological scuttle

quicker than thought.

2. Silves 2001

Those two, geckos with the magic toes ––

guardians of our rented house

in Portugal. While we watched

the terrible loops of data on CNN ––

the towers turned

into blooming smoky candles again and again ––

they returned each night and set

under the porch light

short delicate shadows.

3. Malaga 2004

When you threw another log on the fire

something half-fell, half-

scrambled, smoking on the hearth.

Must have been asleep in the woodpile. For

a handful of heartbeats it froze

as if considering –– flagstones, open door

to the Andalusian stars ––

before skittering back to its bolt-hole, the core

raftered with blue-orange flame ––

safe as ashes, as clay,

already part of the same

sky we’d be vapouring into the following day.

4. Inis Mór 2005

Saw a sand lizard’s face poke

out of a slice

of blackness in a gryke

and was vouchsafed

something of the island’s discrete

micro-climates –– time zones

seeded between the old

carboniferous floors

shifting their plates:

elaborate flying buttress

of bramble and tiny, rare

nova-flowers that burn

in there with feathery tails

of scaly-male fern.

           Mark Granier

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