Size / / /

The lizards were everywhere

and so was the wind.

There was no way you could

keep either of them out

that hard spring.

No matter how swiftly

you shut the door,

the lizards and the wind

would slip inside

that hard spring.

Darting over the floor

with inhuman speed,

they were far too fast

for a novice human

predator such as you.

The lizards were like

lemmings rushing

blindly over a cliff side:

there was no way

they could survive inside.

You would eventually

find their bodies,

dead and desiccated,

beneath a desk or armchair.

And once under the coverlet,

centered on your sheet

carefully as if a draftsman

had placed it there.

But the wind never died

that hard spring.




Bruce Boston is the author of forty-seven books and chapbooks, including the novels The Guardener's Tale and Stained Glass Rain. His writing has received the Bram Stoker Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Asimov's Readers Award, and the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. You can read more about him at www.bruceboston.com and see some of his previous work in our archives.
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