This morning,
on my way to the back door,
I saw a gecko
clinging beside the frame –
head pointing down,
one small leg stretched behind,
its tail curved
loosely to one side.
Nothing unusual in that.
They live among us quietly,
running across walls
and upside-down ceilings
as though gravity
were only a suggestion.
I pointed it out
as we passed.
Perhaps Rosie had found it
the night before,
my husband said –
some small excitement
in the dark.
A few minutes later
I came back.
The gecko was still there.
Not a flicker,
not the smallest movement,
only that impossible grip
upon the wall.
I thought:
it is waiting for me to leave.
I touched it gently,
expecting the sudden life of it –
the startled leap,
the quick scramble
out of reach.
Nothing.
And still,
for a little while,
I could not quite believe
that it was gone.
I swept it carefully
into the dustpan
and carried it outside,
leaving every chance
for some mistake –
for a tiny foot to move,
a tail to twitch,
for life to suddenly remember itself
and run away.
But it did not.
Later,
beneath a young bottlebrush,
I made a small place
in the earth
for a grey little creature
that had lived unnoticed
inside our walls,
and for one morning
made me stop
and notice it.