Lesson for Tony, 1989

KATIE CAPPELLO

The lizard is not meant for catapulting against walls;
it is not meant to thunk against bricks
or sail over, crushing tiny bones on gravel.

That catapult, made in Boy Scouts from wood,
rubber bands, a nailed-down margarine tub,
was meant for water balloons, not living things—

not the black frogs that mate after the monsoon,
or sewer creatures, despite their aerodynamic shells,
or the brown crickets missing legs and antennae.

And least of all the lizard, who does not breathe like us.
Watch the fine skin accordion out from his belly
with a slow rhythm like the moaning of bagpipes.

Watch him skate across the courtyard, cling monk-like
to the swing set pole; listen to the absence
of sound in his steps; trace the trigonometric sine wave

of his curling spine, its perfect arc the inverse
of the crescent moon, of the arc of horizon you can see
when you lay on your back at the edge of the pool

with your feet in the water, jeans rolled to your knees,
clouds skating past like more lizards. Tony,
there are animals living in the tips of our eyelashes,

in the dust under your bunk bed, in between our teeth.
You can’t kill them all. Give it up. Throw away
the catapult, the scaly tail twitching in a paper cup.

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