A Small Sample of Snakes I Have Known

Cottonmouth

That summer, from your nestbeneath my grandparents' dock, you cut

delicate wakes through the lakein the damp morning heat, the air clinging

as close to us as wet cotton. We were notafraid, though we should have been, my siblings

and I. We cut flips from the endof the dock while the snakes dropped

from the pines. What did we know,then, of omens?

Garter snake

Oh black tangleof smooth bellies,

oh stripe on stripe, garterof trunkless legs, patron saint

of the limbless: slick, strong,and adapted. Oh garden

nester, pampas grass lover, allthe mating balls of you

we discover in the bushesin your tight and pulsing

weave. When my husbandsevers a yucca at its roots,

a whole quivering clotof you slides out from the stump

as if just born. I watchyour slender bodies glide over

his boots as he startles back.In his throat he holds

a scream like a swallowed egg.

Copperhead

You, storied viperof the forest, bugaboo to children

running barefoot through the woods,second only to cottonmouths

in the fear you strikeat bedtime. You, of heat-sensing pits

and live birth, of the cool, dryden, field mouse in your throat,

head like a worn penny, no warningshots to fire. How you keep

your secrets secret, will nesteven in suburbs while a baby plays

in the Bahia grass just a few paces away.

Timber rattlesnake

Well, aren't you bold,heavy-bodied god of rough

boulders, guard of our rockyoutcrops, of the gates

to bottomland hardwoods,pine flats, cane thickets dense

and knife-sharp. Your fangsin repose, your crossbands

that cut along the lengthof your dorsal, your fat, slow

heft in the path, your suddenrattle. You could be anywhere

gathering the suninto the dusty bag of your

body. I could be anywherewalking toward you,

a heartbeatfrom hearing you rise.

Hognose

I am so naturally repulsedby you, my sweet,

startled nightmare of a pet,your delicate, upturned

snout, your terror to see meon the shoulder

of the road, runningpast saw palmettos and lyreleaf

sage. Of all snakesyou are my favorite, my small

dramatic talismanlying belly up and coiled

limply as if dead. We're not farinto an endless summer,

the salt bay whetting our dreadin this age of inconsolable tides

and bombs that never stopfalling, but, oh, little hognose,

even now you are sheddingfree any memory of me.