Vox Populi
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Danielle DeTiberus: Selection Pressures
—After Colin M. Donihue’s August 2018 report “Hurricane-induced selection of the morphology of an island lizard”
Or, How to Alleviate Anxiety by Reading
About Caribbean Reptiles Holding on for
Dear Life. Because lizards with the stickiest
toes are rewarded with another hurricane
season, a round of leaf blower tests.
And those without are just plain unlucky.
Or, How to Withstand the Next Gale. Because
I wanted this poem to be about tenacity:
how the anolis body learns to survive if it trusts
itself. All claws and crouch. See, I wanted
a metaphor in thighs turned sails in the wind.
Because our bodies betray us. Or, How to be
a Woman in 2020. Because I used to believe
in progress. Or, How to be White in 2020.
Because I mistook my privilege for faith. No
matter how much I want to look at the new-leaf
green anole dart outside my window and see
myself— it refuses to serve as a stand in for
the human condition, my mood this morning.
No sea-jewel breeze of Turks and Caicos here,
no throat pulse of red warning danger. Only a man,
standing in line at Lowe’s, red leaf blower and blue
electrical tape in his cart. Unlike the lizard,
we can imagine his dreams. He’s held countless
jars of pickled lizards. He is—like all people
waiting in line— a little sad. He looks down
at his feet. Maybe Tevas or tennis shoes.
Nothing like his beloved anoles. He will leave
his queue to go back for a net because
he’s convinced himself that he loves lizards.
Even as test lizards A through E struggle
to grip the wooden dowel he’s placed
in front of a camera. Or, How to Gaslight
a Lizard and Get Published. Because he loves
the lizards, he loves himself. Finds purpose
cranking the leaf blower up in paradise, poring
over hours of footage— that moment the anole
can no longer hang on. Look, he will say.
This is how a species survives: under threat,
clinging. Watch it learn to bear the wind,
to slump down a little lower on the bark.
Or, Why I’ll Never Be the Lizard or the Trees
or the Hurricane or Even the Goddamned
Leaf Blower. In this poem, I am just off camera—
the restless woman behind the scientist
in line at Lowe’s. I, too, am sad. And
looking for clues, a pattern. Desperate
for a little fishing line lasso to catch me gently
by the neck. Lead me someplace I can’t tell
the difference between weather and man.
Between net and absence of net. Or, Even
Those Who Want to Save Me Build a World
in Which I Fall. Or, Survival is a Body
that Has Learned How to Bend From
All the Broken Bodies that Could Not.
Copyright 2022 Danielle DeTiberus
Danielle DeTiberus teaches at the Charleston School of the Arts, and she is the Program Chair, Poetry Society of South Carolina.
Vox Populi 
Ah such a good poem, Danielle, you make me proud (again!)!
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