Member Poem

Lacertilia Regina

Her raddled face; honeyed lisps

rain scales with every sibilation,

stirring coigned dust devils

and reflected winks in that dark case,

carved by them as worshiped

the Lizard Queen.

Weather patterns shift, a coverlet of mold

greens & softens cities,

sinkholes suck markers into muck,

their inscriptions elide and flow

in the water-plunked caverns of the Newt,

vanish beneath draperies of crystal stone.

Papa's got a new god,

Newt glistens in the halls of veneration,

sticky blinks pass sentence

on transgressors, the monster's

four-toed manus descends

oh so heavily upon wrong-doers.

Mama doesn't make that scene,

she's moved to a higher plain;

in a cool dry windswept temple

Lacertia is reborn;

slit-pupil serenity

speaks with forked tongue,

obsidian knives drink, remember,

chants wake the moon,

sand snakes sidle; we are called.