Regeneration

Years ago, a tiny lizard was caught
in the hinge of the bathroom window.

Someone must have shut it quick
and either never noticed 

or left it there on purpose. 
Its body paled to an almost

parchment color. You could see
the spine, like it was turned into

an x-ray of itself. If it had gotten away 
instead of perished, its body

would have spontaneously generated
a copy of the amputated part— its cells

proliferating into cartilage instead of growing 
more bone in place of broken bone. As a child 

I'd loved stories of their free-fall from the ceiling, 
admired that superpower which could put 

a fractured thing back into some semblance of 
the whole. But also, I remember the warnings 

not to wish so hard for anything in case it 
becomes too true— Every escape a kind of 

thievery from the gods, for which you 
might have to pay, with no end in sight.