Fence Wizard
nervous dagger,
no caesar to slay,
heat will not die
and it surely is king
of alabaster and tan,
the only colors known,
crumbling like the foothills,
a fuzzy kind of real
thick with blurry waves.
caffeine for cold-blooded veins.
they simmer more fervent
than any mammal,
making love to burning stone,
chest to chest.
one heartbeat enough for both.
the squamous belly sleek
against coarse, mummified clay.
a romance so fast
it could disappear, flee to blink.
gone to some nowhere
to slip the pluck of a kestrel.
other times the fence wizard
sits like speckled dough,
impossible to snatch
in its oven-brave magic.
could it though, at long last,
choose the talons, as a sage
might glance the world
from a final height?
such has always been
the beautiful strategy:
staccato reconnaissance
from hairline eyes
to reap the truth
from fragments.
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"Fence wizard" is a play on "western fence lizard," a common species in the chaparral.
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