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500 LISTEN HERE SNAKE DREAMS from Snake Dreams (I994) Last night I dreamed a rattlesnake moved into my house like it was his and he was home at last. In his slick belly a lump exactly the shape and size of a hummingbird throbbed like a heartbeat and I swear I saw a smile on those reptile lips. Even the cats, mean as mountain lions, ducked behind chairs when he trilled his tongue. Let's just let him have the place, I said. I've been wanting a larger house, a smaller house, whatever. But my sister stepped toward him, let him nudge her leg like a colt then strangled him with her fingers, pinching just below those green eyes. He played the tambourine until he dropped. Now I know there are many things in these mountains to be wary of besides rattlers. I know too what they say about snake dreams, that I am running from some man, or ought to be. But it was only yesterday I was thinking, Spring is coming to these hills. See how pale green splatters against winter-burned trees, red Judas bleeds like birth. Stand at the top where rattlesnakes are waking up and look down at the twisting North Fork, how it yawns and stretches then coils, pulsing with the overflow of the season, see how it spills out and moves in, brown and venomous. ...

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