Our Skinks During Pandemic

I saw on Facebook this morning

something about every human

domicile

everywhere in the world having

a resident skink.

I Googled skink, just to be sure

I knew what it was,

and sure enuf, Wikipedia confirmed

my suspicion the little alligator

that creeps quietly into view wherever I am

in my apartment

once or, if I'm lucky, twice

a year

is a skink.

Memory then kicked in and reminded me

my skink has appeared only when

I am least expecting him/her to do so,

and I suddenly (a word Jonathan Franzen

forbids me to use, to which I say, Fuck Franzen)

remembered, too, that somewhere in some

hidden crevice of my myriad levels of

understanding, I am virtually always

expecting her/him (I’ve not gotten near enuf

to determine which) to appear, explaining

why he/she has remained concealed in one

of her/his myriad nooks or crannies

thus far this year.

But then (another Franzen nono) THEN a

two-pronged observation surfaced into my

primary level of understanding, to wit:

(1) the strangeness of our current universal

germ-driven residential imprisonment is

spooking our skinks into super-extended

seclusive introspection, or

(2) the little dragons are planning one

helluva collective simultaneous SUDDEN

universal surprise appearance for us when

we all are virtually oblivious to the possibility

so we may all laff or shriek or clap our hands

or stomp our feet at once,

breaking our enforced singularity for one flicker

of a moment uniting us for the very first time in

hominid history, or

(3) there is no 3.

                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                                                                                       m.d. paust