Daily Rescue #2

July 20

1. A baby lizard, so small I can't imagine the organs, dashes from the street through my sandaled feet. I'm standing at our gate, about to roll the recycling bins back in. But I am startled now, at how giant I am. At how my feet could end a life just beginning, just like that.

   
   

   I remember a Mrs. Dalloway quote, something about how miraculous it is that we survive even one day.

   
   

   The stone path the cans must travel is full of California poppies now, their thin green arms holding up little orange kites through the cracks. I try to line the wheels up so none are crushed, but there are so many. In the end I close my eyes, and drag.

2. A hawk screams across the 7pm sky. She is yelling, I see now, at another hawk, perched high in a redwood in the neighbor's yard. I'm lying on my back in the grass, trying to stay cool.

   
   

   When they meet, the screaming one replaces the waiting one, who lifts off now across the same line of sky--silently this time.

   
   

   When a hawk is flying over your head, the whole sky feels like it's only there to hold the bird. Like an iris for a pupil.

3. There is a foil-wrapped slice of polenta cake on top of the eggs in the fridge —for later.

   
   

   Now it's finally later. The foil is crinkled like lizard scales from how many times I've taken a bite, put it back; considered another, declined.

   
   

   Tonight, I want to eat it the way it's meant to be eaten. I want a plate, and time alone. (I want to eat this cake the way women wear the dress. Kiss the boy. Jump in the lake.)

   
   

   Wait until the tea is ready, a voice tells me.

   
   

   But as the water works toward a boil, I am at my laptop writing, scribbling into the screen what I remember of my day. And after every sentence, I watch (as if from the window) my fingers grip the cake's shoulders, lift its yellow chin to my face; I watch my mouth open, my insides cheer.

   
   

   By the time the Rooibos is red enough, only two bites remain. As I sip, I imagine the tea chasing the cake down the road of my throat, into the cul-de-sac of my stomach. I imagine the two meeting there, one breathless, one sitting on the curb, waiting.

   
   

   Tonight, everything inside me feels like a child. We are not worried. We believe we have all the time in the world.