In this lovely prose poem, we meet a grieving woman and a rescued iguana. I imagine her,
shouldering the weight of her troubles, when she suddenly realizes…even this is something.
This small, simple or ordinary thing, so easy to overlook or minimize, in an instant, becomes
worthy of attention. Quietly, grace arrives unannounced, asks nothing of you. Nothing but your
attention and willingness to receive the blessing. May it be so. XO

 

Wildlife
The woman who was saving iguanas opened the cage of the newest arrival and asked if I wanted to hold him. She showed me how to slip my forearm under his scaly belly and bring him to my chest, not unlike soothing a colicky baby, though the iguana showed no distress and breathed evenly against my body, not cold, not warm, as if he didn’t mind being suspended in a stranger’s arms, as if nothing could surprise him in the tumble of the world he’d been swept up into. The iguana was strapped into a thin black harness that made him look like a leatherman from the Castro, an old queer with spiked hair and his wrinkled dewlap. I’d had a bad day, well really a bad year, and the one before that wasn’t good either. My child wasn’t talking to me and I’d stopped talking to everyone else. The iguana was still as a monk in prayer, all that moved were his ruched eyelids which opened and closed over his orange eyes. His chest filled and emptied with the dry hot air we shared. I thought to myself, even this is something.

Ellen Bass first published in Poetry (March 2026).
Copyrighted material, for inspirational purposes only.

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