A small lizard
from the melting skids
of a burnt tire

could fit
in its dying writhe
through the seam
of my shaking hand's palm.

Only we in its death throes
will know the quietness
of its last protest.

But its tongue flickers,
a brown flame from the hearth
of a life we abandoned
when we gained fur.

The skin it sheds
is coating still
the severed hand
I left behind,
with one of my favorite
fellow mammals,

when the yellowed eyes
of the fur-wearers
wore out
and I saw their emptiness
in the reptilian tunnels

they had avoided crawling
ever before I
entered and willingly let sag
my halves of skin.