On being eaten by a snake
Knowing they are not poisonous
I kneel on the path to watch it
between poppies, by a crown of nasturtiums,
the grey-stripe body almost half as long
as my own body, the formless black head
rearing, swaying, the wide black lips seeming
to smile at me. And I see
that the head is not a head,
the slit I have seen as mouth
is not a mouth, the frilled black under-lips
not lips, but another creature dying: I see
how the snake’s own head is narrow and delicate,
how it slides its mouth up and then back
with love, stretched to thin shapelessness
as if with love, the sun stroking
the slug’s wet skin as it hangs
in the light, resting, so that even the victim
must surely feel pleasure, the dark ripple
of neck that is no neck lovely
as the slug is sucked backwards
to the belly that is not belly, the head
that is merely head
shrinking to nameable proportions.
Susan Wicks
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário