Young humans among the green bulbs,
my schoolmate at her family avocado farm, 
her mother back in the Airstream making
lemonade. I see movement, then stillness— 
a baby lizard, its elbows balanced on a
lichen-splattered rock, scales scattered 
with rust and sage, an ink-brushed collar 
of two black strokes. I snap carefully as it 
poses, and never imagine this roll
that will return as twenty-four blurred fingertips.
       Twenty-four fingertips returned, a blur
of never-posed rolled imagination
as I carefully snapped the black strokes—
two collars of ink-brush on sage and rust, 
rock-scattered, lichen-splattered, 
balanced on elbows—the stillness of a baby 
lizard. I saw then movement, lemonade- 
making, her mother’s back to the Airstream
at the avocado farm, my schoolmate’s family,
young green humans among the bulbs.

Photo by Erik Karits from Pexels