In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • Garter, Copper, Water
  • Laura Kolbe (bio)

He's my age, and for once in Wise, VirginiaI believe it: same confused complexion(baby pimples nose and chin,around the eyes first fine contrails scratchingvacant sky), same dislike to sitwhile others stand. Same no gold band.He's clean: I like the way he preened todaybefore clinic, though he circles usmost warm days in oily t-shirts, mowingour field, taking care of our snake problem.He hands me the old inhaler dimpled with bites,times he dug when air couldn't comefast enough. I thank him and set it asideas a piece of jewelry too nice for day,or one that would clasp too much.

The snakes were in frenzies of lust this year,record-breaking litters and a den in every teardownpast Guest River toward the mines.He gets them with his shovel or his truck.One filthy time, with his push mower.King snake, queen snake, milk snake, green snake,garter, water, copperhead, hognose—snuff photos on his phone, all these deadfrogeaters, ankle biters—fifteen bodieslater, they seem less like killersand more like grammar, giving and takingbreath and stops between short, hollow teeth. [End Page 130] "How many would really bite?""You don't wait to find out it's mean."

There's a clay-red corn snake I can't unsee,flayed skin like a mother's last touchon a wrapped birthday present, cool silver runnelof scissor sucking red ribbon into its currentthen releasing it, twisted astonished,the stiff bright spiral that meansin every language, I took great pains with this. [End Page 131]

Laura Kolbe

Laura Kolbe's poems have appeared in Agni, the Awl, Blackbird, Cincinnati Review, Colorado Review, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Yale Review, and elsewhere. Her fiction, essays, and criticism have appeared or are forthcoming in Bookforum, Idiom, the Literary Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She is a resident physician in Boston, Massachusetts.

...

pdf

Share