Selected Poems

The Lizards Hold Court at Delos (2008)

from PRISM international, Vol. 46:4

The lizards hold court at Delos.
Smug lizards, contemporary Delians,
scales scraping on sun-scorched rocks.

The lizards don’t care much for theatre.
It bores them. Apollo tumbles
for their pleasure as they absently
pluck insects from drooping sway-grass.

This is their temple, their house of broken tiles.

Smashed pillars for flicking tails and thorny crests.
Cistern-lined stoas a place for quick tongues.
Headless white god-trunks
a good place for pooping.

Eyeskin membranes blink from a patchwork wall:
look up past the hill shrines,
the tumble-down agoras,
to a blazing, inhuman sun.