As if to Waltz
What are they thinking, the old he-lizards
with their lizard brains? Late October, but instead
of readying to hibernate, they’re looking to get busy
with the she-lizards on the wall outside my writing shed.
Flashing cobalt bellies, strutting yellow thighs.
One long-tailed, puffed-up fellow pumped one hundred
push-ups in the waning autumn light. Does he not realize
the rain is nigh, the fox tucked inside her den?
Or like the poppy blooming out of season, does he rise
and fall in rhythm to our newly unwound clock? When
drought strains the olive trees until they split and crack,
when forests curdle brown and corals blanch, who then
in vanishing hours shall fault the maniacs
who dance, who mime a spell as if to waltz us back?
Veronica Kornberg is a poet from Northern California. Recipient of the Morton Marcus Poetry Prize, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Salamander, New Ohio Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, The New Guard, #PoetsResist (Glass), Mom Egg Review, Spillway, Tar River Poetry, Crab Creek Review, Swwim Every Day, and Meridian, among other journals. veronicakornberg.com @vkornberg