Lizard at Pompeii

Little finger of fiery green, it
flickers over stone. Waits
in a weed's shadow.
Flashes emerald-
is gone.

Here once horror poured so hot, heavy, thick,
everyone was dead before he was sick.
Now here is no heat but the sun's
on old stone treads;
no motion but that rippling inch of whip:
yours, you little live jewel, who slipped away
into silence. Yet stay on to haunt memory,
like those dead.