Prayer
For A Serpent
A severed finger on a
layer cake or
a loaded shotgun resting
on my pillow pack
a punch, numbers sixteen and
twenty-seven
respectively on my list of
irrational fears
trailing high narrow ledges
and total
financial collapse
somewhere in the top
ten but for shear ability
to paralyze
nothing can touch a snake,
whether it’s the
copperhead my dad
dispatched with one clean
swipe of a hoe, casually
tossing the
headless trophy onto the
sizzling hood of
a Jeep, the unlikely
presence of every
Snake of North America together
in one
lush forest scene on a
colorful acetate plate
in Encyclopedia Britannica
practically crawling off
the page into my lap or
more recently the long
black one negotiating
the warm gleaming blacktop
late one afternoon
headed, I suppose, for the
safety of the lake’s
marshy skirt looking
exposed and
vulnerable, damned forever
to crawl upon
his belly after that nasty
business in
the Garden, a fate
undeserved and way out
of proportion to the alleged
crime, a caper
Adam and Eve, the original
one-percent,
would have gleefully committed
on their
own, all this as I gave
him a wide berth and
peddled away offering a
prayer of deliverance.
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