The Lizard

"Let it be," dad said when a lizard ran beneath a rock. I was out in the yard—yellow sun beating down, yellow grass dead as bones—sitting on the bottom step when the lizard crossed the yard. Dust clouded round its tracks.

Dad was on the porch drinking whiskey on the rocks in his yellow tee, sun-burnt face talking loudly on the phone when that lizard crossed my view. I stood, and it stilled, one eye watching me. I stepped—it zoomed beneath the rock. I second stepped when my father stood to say, "Let it be." I went back and sat. He said, "Oh, no. Talking to my kid."

My dad turned his sun-burnt self to the backdoor. He went inside and shut the screen. "I know, I know," he said, laughing as he faded. I rose.

I walked over to the rock.
I placed my foot upon the rock.
I placed my weight upon the rock.
I stood my whole self upon that rock, looking out:

the grass barely bending in the breeze, heat rising from the Earth, the muffled laughter—