life

there are lizards in your room

there always were…perched sunning on the sill, jumping free as your respiratory machinery jerked and rattled to life

life had always sought you out…possums peered at you as you slept, late into the long hours of night

busy wrens nested on the porch, inches from where you lay, a pane of glass between…and you heard their songs as redbirds and brown thrashers built homes in the holly bush outside your eastern window…

we smiled at the mockingbird that followed you through your day, hopping from window to window, tapping out an indecipherable message

since you left us, this room is changed, though it remains…you

you infused this room with memories…perhaps the creatures sense your presence lingering here

i let the visiting lizards stay a while, then gently move them outside when the sun is warm, and they will find shelter with one another

i want them to live…i’m done with dying

©️2021