Tiny flicker
hiding
in wet leaves,
infant flame
cool to my
monstrous fingers,
you look at me
inscrutably
with your
minute eye,
your mouth
a straight line,
neither smile
nor frown.

Little wriggler,
orange spy,
you seem to be
keeping a secret.
Even your name,
which means
nothing to you,
feels cryptic,
incomplete,
part of a word—
the way you slip
into the cleft
between rocks
when I let you go.