Joel Moskowitz

 Heat Wave, Biscayne Bay

It's been days
since that barge
with a crane on top
drove pilings
down to bedrock.
Now, on one of them,
a gray lizard
clings, holding
still as a staple
to the wood,
with its fingers,
those tiny extremities
not adapted for the sea.
Marooned,
how did it get there?
Carried by wind?
From the sea wall,
did it leap?
––float on a two-by-four
that fell in?
––or simply hang on
on the day the piling
was rammed in place,
plumb?
A bird could easily
eat the slender meal,
or–– if I don’t row out
and rescue–– the lizard
will shrivel,
will die of thirst.
Its soul will rise
as mist. Its body,
like a seed pod,
will drop, and drift.

Joel Moskowitz, an artist and picture framer in Sudbury, Massachusetts, has had poems published in J Journal, Midstream, The Healing Muse, Naugatuck River Review, Whiskey Island Magazine, and The New Vilna Review. He is the first place winner of the Poetry Society of New Hampshire’s National Contest, November, 2008.