Garden Story

Out of the still center of the big field near our house,

from the burned-out, tangled heap

of felled trees there—

the black mass you can glance at

sidewise, and still see flames, trapped heat still wavering up

after all this time--

I've found something. Something alive in both my hands

and what the big kids call

the devil lizard, horned lizard, toad.

I'm five. I talk to it the whole way home.

I wonder how it manages

to breathe,

the way it's nailed to itself like that.

Big thorns stuck

through its head and neck and back, all over.

Every several seconds it signals

its distress,

with a needle of blood emitted

from an eye.

By the time I'm home, it's late. It's supper.

I ease the thing down on the lawn, saying here

is where you are and

Don't Move.

When I come back out there's a grisly

chill on the air, and of course the thing is gone.

Just a little breeze

through the grass where it was.

Though by now it's hard to see, I stand there,

peering out along

the edge of the fence, around and around the base

of a single, shattered lamp. This is a whole new yard.