1

Back home from hospital again.
You read Invisible Cities outside
in the morning sun. A small lizard appears.
Its solar-powered musculature moves
across the paving stones. Its skin is both matte
and jewelled in the sunlight. It stops and flicks
its front legs down to its sides, like an ingenious
Edwardian gadget snapping itself shut.
You and the creature take in the sun, then
the lizard heads for the maze of grass,
hiding from the hard-nosed suburban birds.
You take yourself indoors into the dark of the house,
clutching Calvino, the old fabulist.