The visitor

On my porch
a lizard crawls out of a wet newspaper
his artichoke-green body
a shard of lichen-coated stone come to life
after an eruption in some river.

His tongue flicks in and out,
a coin refused by a slot,
and he dips its forked end
in my fallen wineglass.
The last red drop slithers
into his thin mouth.

He's slow walking away
as if that were enough to get him drunk.
He slinks down the front steps
and across the driveway
carrying my whole world with him
in a way neither of us understands.

Shadows in daylight and a dance

The shadows of powerlines, scentless, noiseless,
lie long and almost perfectly straight
on the pavement in sunlight. The branches
above them cast their more varied shadows,
tangling themselves in the lines of electrical wires,
all of them pulsing with electricity, shadow and vine,
mushroom and discarded coat hanger.

At night the wood grows wet with hunger.
The powerlines sizzle in midnight dew.
The weather grows strange around
quietly buzzing houses. Peeping toms
begin to see mirrors instead of bodies.
Breezes take on venomous, vivid colors.

And the certain destruction coming for us,
the way it makes us cling together in bed
or when saying goodbye to each other
at the door, and the distance between us
that it creates, is a ballet in the fog.