Like a lizard, I sit soaking the heat
protected by the feasting green
of jungle and the factor fifty that
glistens on my more fragile skin.
The heat prickles on my surface and creeps
slowly into my winter-cold bones. I
listen gratefully past my tinnitus
to the merciful strands of birdsong
that hang just above the fence, but far
below the watching crows; and I watch
a small world of miniature monsters
conducting their own fragile ecology
in the semi-alien environment
of my jungle, eating and breeding on
my treasures; eating and breeding on each other.