To a Glass Lizard

  You know me, always ready to cross an ocean   in search of something I’ve overlooked in my own backyard,   Pliny was right: Rome is what a Roman never sees.   You know me. How many years had I crossed the yard   from porch to car and never seen you, the stubby snake   who ruled the place? Speckled pretzel coming untied,   droopy pencil looped like penmanship practice   over a branch of azalea bush, branch-colored—   glass lizard, when did evolution take back your legs?   To escape from me, you would shed two-thirds your length,   leave your tail to thrash, by way of distraction.   Few who live to adulthood are found to be perfect,   the field guide says, though the tail regrows. Lizard,   Don’t move. Don’t break like glass. Let me   be the one to disappear into the underbrush   of everyday loss.