There is a lizard lying there

dead and dried against the stucco wall

kicked aside among the cigarette butts

and green broken glass

She takes a picture on her phone

while I walk back beneath her apartment window

stoop down among the tulips

set my beer next to my knee

carefully

and drag my nails across the dirt

a one inch hole across the soil

Back at the lizard

she yells at me

when I brush aside a bandaid

pick the reptile up

by its crinkling abdomen

and place it in the little grave

spreading the dirt back over

in a haphazard cover

She asks me why I bothered

and I tell her some bull^#!&

about spirit animals,

that lizards are sacred, that

native trabes believe them to be magic

whether or not I believe it

Because I will not tell her

I do this

because of when I was six

attempting to catch a blue-belly

hiding among a stack of two by fours

and angry that it had eluded me

and abusing a sudden knowledge

I sent the pile crashing down

crushing the creature

smearing its guts against the wood.

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