Alicia Askenase: Planet’s Climate Reversal in Spite of Itself and What Lies Outside of Itself

It’s raining iguanas

In the In God We Trust state, plopping

From trees, not dead, playing dead, when temperature

Falls below 50, sluggish, under 40, blood stops moving.

Whatever you do, don’t touch them!

They have a good chance if you push them into the sun.

Somebody will prod one with his pool skimmer

So allegedly you have to touch them.

They thaw out, like chicken on a counter or frozen water

Delivery bottle left outside you can blow out like hair.

By no means should you collect them in your car!

When they warm up, they’ll crawl all over you

and you’ll probably freak out and crash.

Like the Floridians, the iguana is not a native of Florida.

Introduced to the florid fountain of youth as pets no longer

Welcomed by the residents who hosted them as pets,

Florida, like many states attracts strange people;

Paradise entices the fraught with the lucrative.

Same day it rained iguanas, atop Mt. Washington

in our Live Free or Die state, the temperature plunged

with the wind chill 100 degrees below

Zero under a biting 100 degrees the winded

State of Live Free or Die degrees of our declining

Day shift iguanas reigned above Mt. Washington’s

High and lucrative paradise, hallucinated how the fraught

Entices a florid imagination of weird attractive backdrops

Where pets welcomed as residents are wonderful hosts

Are no longer pests, lounge in hot springs presented as youth

Not natives, Florida is a reptilian iguana

So don’t lose control and crash your car.

They’ll warm up to you and crawl up on your lap

Ignore the By no means should you let them in your car!

A mere symbol of stolen spring water from California distributed frozen

As precious chicken in certain markets, mellow out at the counter

Where you’ll allegedly touch discounts with a swipe

Go home and have the pool boy prod you, skimming

Into the sunny part together, it’s only good luck

And whatever you do, do touch him!

Until it drops below 40 or 50, you’ll feel bushed,

Play dead, he’ll bolt soon you’ll be landing In a God

We Trust state late fall iguanas treading upscale palms.