The Lizard Whisperer
Rent from DeepDyve- The Lizard Whisperer
I found my lizard in rain time grass,and that is the greenest of all.
I gave my lizard an emerald box,all fragile and jeweled and small.
I show my lizard: “Please come in,see the rare reptile with water green skin.”
I lash my lizard with a silver threadto bring forth one drop, pomegranate-seed red.
I command my lizard: “Roll over. Play dead.”It takes all his strength, but he does what I said.
So now we’re an act and travel by trainto stacking-chair halls in backwater towns,
Where I mount to the stage, demonstrate and explainThe behaviors of my lizard child.
O, all think it marvelous how I have tameda creature who used to be wild. [End Page 115]
Belle Randall has been poetry editor of Common Knowledge since its inception. Her poem “A Child’s Garden of Gods” is included in the anthology The Open Door: One Hundred Poems, One Hundred Years of “Poetry” Magazine. Her books include 101 Different Ways of Playing Solitaire and Other Poems, The Orpheus Sedan, Drop Dead Beautiful, and The Coast Starlight. She is coeditor (with Richard Denner) of Exploding Flowers: Selected Poems of Luis Garcia.
