We thought it squashed, a spotty
tan tube on dusty
asphalt. Still
undulate of S –
“crushed by the grinding weight
of superstition” –
unspooled from
a sheltering bush
along the ditch, camouflaged,
noticed just in time.
In the distance, mountains
dipped in clouds.
Somewhere east
it rained. Staying me,
in “the natural order of things
unimaginably vast and complex,”
you stoned the snake.
Bad luck, I cried.
I didn’t know
I thought that, but felt it as stone
after stone whistled straight
on target,
understanding being
one of humans’ most austere
pleasures: Not killing, no,
nothing so absolute;
curiosity more like it,
the inexplicable having
occurred: at the last moment each stone
swerved eerily off in parabolic arcs,
as if freed from some terrible purpose
by an orb of protection
we couldn’t see
shielding the snake.
Anyway, you said, turning,
throwing a last shot, it’s dead.
But I was lured
to look back,
blink as stone veered,
snake braided and was gone.
n.b. Lines quoted and (in one case) paraphrased are drawn not quite randomly from The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt