Just after dawn, I mumble you awake with my dream
that a lizard has been elected president.

You say that might be a nice change of pace.
That if we all awoke with scales

and our blood turned ice
like the toes I always press against your spine,

we could still hold claws.

Spend our longest days forgetting
the dishes, quadratic equations, words

falling out of our pebble brains,
I’ll find my poems

in the pulses of your dewlap throat,
in every lazy wink.

So let our new overlords bless this home
as they take who we were and all we’ve hoarded

and every search result that says reptiles don’t love.
We will still be here: prickly cheek to cheek

awaiting another life’s sun.