Large lump of lizard three meters long
Sauria varanidae, the muscled Monitor
is a timid dragon, at home in the hot humidity
of swampy Asian jungles.

With shovel shaped head and meaty tail
he’s amazingly agile for his bulk
He climbs trees to catch snakes,
swims strongly in tepid green lakes.

Clad in gray green supple skin
he lives his life in low profile,
hides in leaf litter
keeps his power secret.

Wizened old woman, barely four feet tall
Homo sapiens, female of the species
painfully hobbles to market
shuffling along in slippers.

A sarong swathes her body
but it cannot camouflage
festoons of wrinkled skin
the agony in her knobbled joints.

She hates her new government apartment.
Too many stairs, no dogs, no garden.
She misses old friends from her kampong
in the jungle, demolished a decade ago.

In the market, she points at the Monitor
lying limp in a basket, trussed tightly,
claws curled in submission
belly up in the hot sun.

She haggles, gropes for money,
as a man slits the lizard’s yellow belly
and pulls out the Monitor’s secret,
the potent remedy for her pain
a fresh warm gall bladder.