Sitting on my doorstep this Sunday afternoon
while my daughter beats her father
a second time at Mancala, I see a baby lizard
gumdrop green by my feet. Moving
only its paintbrush head, the slender torso remains still
like the red brick canvas
holding us both.

A text from my mother— My
heart bursts with love for you. I can physically
feel it. And my cats stand watch
in the window, linked to the lizard’s every twitch.
Only now it is brown. I Google why

do lizards change colors and learn this tiny guy
is an anole who turns brown
from stress or fright. I blame my husband
who protests his third loss at Mancala, but he points
at our domestic short hairs silent
as spider-silk, watching their prey
scurry up the wall. Love

bombing is something else I recently learned
about. It’s the narcissistic mother’s gambit
in a cycle of manipulation. It almost
always results in a victory. I notice
the lizard is again green
as my daughter counts the glass stones, closing
her wooden case like the eyelids
of a small animal. Can I drive down
and visit you this summer, my mother texts.

I fall for it. Sure!— and she drops her stones
one by one into the divots
of my inner child. I turn brown. Or you could
drive up here, you know.