Lizard Pie! Poem by David Lewis Paget

We’d set the date, and I’d bought the ring,
The dress was ready, and so was I,
But Liz went down with a fearful chill,
Her forehead burned and her mouth was dry.

They did some tests and they called me in,
The doctor muttered, and shook his head,
‘She’s diabetic, as sure as sin,
She’s lucky to be alive, ’ he said.

‘You’ll have to be married another day,
We’ll get those sugars controlled, ’ he said,
‘I’ll give her a course of insulin,
But you make sure that she stays in bed! ’

It took a while for the sugar count
To drop, and Liz had a throbbing brain,
The Gila Monster’s saliva gland*
Would feed her nausea, over again!

With every needle at morn and night
She’d fade and sicken, and turn away,
I felt the chill of a lizard’s breath
Turn Liz to Lizard, more every day.

The weeks went by and I watched her fret,
She lost some weight and her skin was dry,
It flaked and roughened, she moved in jerks,
And stared unblinking, up at the sky.

The laughing girl that I’d known and loved
Became morose, and as cold as ice,
I’d try to jolly, and kiss her lips,
But hate shone out of her cold, dead eyes!

A fly got into the room one day
And buzzed her steady, unblinking eye,
Her tongue shot out in a sticky mass,
Went snap, rolled up, and - No more fly!

I hate to tell you the end of it,
The doctor called with his Gila gland,
I heard a scream and he rushed away,
A festering sore where she’d taken his hand!

‘But why did you bite the doctor, Liz,
How did you do that trick with the fly? ’
She slithered along on her belly in there,
Belched and burped, said – ‘Lizard Pie! ’

26 December 2011

• (One of the insulins used in controlling
diabetic sugars is manufactured from the saliva
of Gila Monsters) .