Sitting on my doorstep this Sunday afternoon  
while my daughter beats her father 
a second time at Mancala, I see a baby lizard  
gumdrop green by my feet. Moving  
only its paintbrush head, the slender torso remains still 
like the red brick canvas  
holding us both.   

A text from my mother— My 
heart bursts with love for you. I can physically 
feel it. And my cats stand watch 
in the window, linked to the lizard’s every twitch. 
Only now it is brown. I Google why 

do lizards change colors and learn this tiny guy 
is an anole who turns brown 
from stress or fright. I blame my husband  
who protests his third loss at Mancala, but he points 
at our domestic short hairs silent 
as spider-silk, watching their prey  
scurry up the wall. Love 

bombing is something else I recently learned 
about. It’s the narcissistic mother’s gambit 
in a cycle of manipulation. It almost  
always results in a victory. I notice 
the lizard is again green  
as my daughter counts the glass stones, closing 
her wooden case like the eyelids 
of a small animal. Can I drive down  
and visit you this summer, my mother texts.   

I fall for it. Sure!— and she drops her stones 
one by one into the divots 
of my inner child. I turn brown. Or you could 
drive up here, you know.  

Candice Kelsey teaches writing in the South. Her poetry appears in Poets Reading the News and Poet Lore among other journals, and her first collection, Still I am Pushing, explores mother-daughter relationships as well as toxic body messages. She won the 2019 Two Sisters Writing's Contest and was recently nominated for both a Best of the Net and a Pushcart. Find her at www.candicemkelseypoet.com