The magic hour

When two moons wane in the winter months and the sand is carved in clumps of frost, the galloping skink spreads its toes and thinks ahead to what was lost. Its bones absorb electron seeds and gather time between their cells, and with the carving of the sand, the moons are ripe for minor spells. A flicker of a twice-forked tongue, a tremble of a twisted claw, the skink removes its final breath and cranes to hear what it saw. In bare whispers faint as dusk a future tale as old as life, as true as the sun winding its eye as true as the winter wielding its knife. 'Wait and watch until it comes, wait to see its eyelids crack, catch the colour in your hand, then turn and ruin and don't look back'. And shivering, the skink returns to re-inhale its final breath, sets its face against the wind and waits to catch the eye of death.