Skink

Gram of mania, animated pepper,

shadow-monger dressed in panic,

monitor of  ghostly footfalls,

it concentrates in its essential tic

the frog leg dropped into oil

and the human shock at the verge.

If  it would stop and let me look,

I might imagine the tropic

where it hangs in a hammock

between two popsicle sticks

admiring the iguana’s stealth,

but it does not stop. Hawk-

dodger, crow-pretzel, gallows’

twitch. Spider-shark. Porter

of  readiness, miller of  the

steady shudder, peripatetic

rectitude, run by the power

of   the sunlit rock, it fortifies

Darwin and the idea of   being late

and the missed appointment.

With its blue tail, it reminds us:

it will go on. It will not stop.