The Lizard and the Fly

Adrift from the normal flow of things

he is watching the progress of a lizard

across the window pane.  Someone is speaking

as others listen, but he can find no way

to become part of their conversation.  Time

is running at a different pace in his mind,

in his heart,

and the essential geography is all askew.

The lizard (“Is it a gecko?” some part of him wonders)

is on the outside of the glass,

and on the inside there is a fly.

The lizard is stalking the fly, but cannot catch it,

cannot touch it, cannot understand why;  while the fly on its part

seems oblivious to the lizard.

The fly continues to buzz against the pane,

the lizard continues not to catch it.

People continue to speak.  And so the morning progresses,

this meeting at which he has to be present, even though

he cannot truly attend.  Only a fraction of his self

is even attending to the comic drama of gecko and fly,

which at least has the virtue of novelty.

“What is wrong with me?” he wonders.

What is wrong with me

is that I am still on the wrong side of the glass;

nothing I see is able to catch me, for I am not really here.

I left too much behind;

the beating heart of me is elsewhere, on some other continent.

I remain out of reach

and out of touch.