Lucky Bones

Election Day 2012

20 election day 2012 After the rain the lizards preen on the heavy leaves the bent grass Our Lizard of the Mail Box pokes out his slim head craning this way and that Where’s the mail? Is it National Lizard Day or what? The chameleon crawls from inside the mouth of our terra cotta wood sprite and hangs like a rusty tongue to lick the rough pine boards of our deck And from the screened-in pantry sink the thin feet of our tiny Cuban grip the grill my wife leans there to help him see what he’s missed: it’s cooler now the wind’s picking up Nearby the gutters run deceptively clean and the green anole on our daily Times dips its long snout in droplets scattered over the blue plastic bag hiding the headlines from us all Can he see motion in the alley where the broken glass glitters and the drunks are pissing blood? Every Large One armed against everyone unlike himself females circling the muscled males with their sharp teeth? O my quiet lizards brown and black 21 skink and gecko gaudy iguana O all of you green and mottled be careful: watch your tails while somewhere deep and disguised in a dark Columbian rainforest guarding its expanding nation the Jesus Christ Lizard runs across water its eyes seeing everything at once and not with adoration ...