On Waking in the Morning
and Finding a Gecko Staring Me in the Face
by James Green

I woke into a thin blue dawn, not yet light,
no longer shadow, the world wobbly on its hinge
and there he was–no larger than my thumb,
scaled like some survivor from when the world
trembled, mountains split, and oceans boiled.
Only an inch of air between us, looking large
as a T-Rex, though motionless as a monk in prayer,
his toes splayed on my pillow. I blinked. He didn’t.
He licked his eye with a tongue as thin
as irony and I swear I heard him mutter
so this is the great Homo Sapiens,
inventor of Twitter and climate change.
He stayed there, still as a stick, watching me
to see if I might yet evolve.



 

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