by Elsa Johnson

Each year   her shed skin                   draped the rafters   of the barn
tissue of small scales        over-lapping         fragile              strange
in the hands                                        mottled discard of milk snake

In my dream          they came from the northwest            diagonally
past the corner of the house   :   solid fabric of snake                  red
and black            striped             side by side                    undulating
packed tight                        roiling                             around my feet

Horses grazed at pasture         In the cropped grass          blue black
racer                slimness          slipping by           We  —  bare legged
clutch of summer   —    whooping !    keeping-up        down the hill
down to the swamp where        anticlimactically             he was lost

Coiled         lying by the track to the backfields                 crops left
woods right        —        black snake                           thick as a girl’s
arm          as imagination         long               I jumped  each time he
broke for the woods               across the track                      the thrill
undiminished                  when I startled him              he startled me

Raspberry canes     growing high    twined    among the branches of
the small tree    fruit above eye level              me     reaching for red
jewel of sweetness       grasping        instead      small head of snake
eyes open wide       mouth to the berry           not expecting    hands
when I startled it           it startled me                  no one ate the fruit

The trapped water    seeped from the quarry walls         along edges
lay           water snakes            somnolent seeming                 hidden
but       ready to slide water-ward        or bite                edgy reptiles
thick as a girl’s arm                          silent     as mental       ululation

Hoop snakes were real    the old timer said    in her youth   she saw
them     down    in the fields   by the swamp     where    if they were
startled      they put their tails     in their  mouths     and rolled away

That summer    when I was fourteen         I went to a camp    where
one child       not me     sat on a rattlesnake                                   he
startled it                                                                                    It bit

In the deep woods   one fall              my adult life   falling about me
like leaves       like the thick leaves underfoot                 stepping on
what’s that !                  …..she    slow from the cold     the torpor of
cold    dark    mottled leaves                a bit small   dark perhaps for
copperhead      thick      not slim like racer           not like milksnake
Too cold to bite          to slow to startle     —     (much)     —     adieu

I live in the city now   I do not see snakes       except    occasionally
a dead one     lying flat      drying        on hot asphalt       in the park
squashed by a bike tire       by someone        too slow to swerve   or
perhaps not seeing    value    in snakes      perhaps enjoying       that

This summer        working out in the country         that isn’t country
that is      lawns        mower hungry         circling             big houses
I     at peace     planting       focused on flowers               stepped on
something writhing     round under foot               It is she  — ancient
Goddess of Startle     blooming      her sleek skin bright       not like
I saw it              left              discard            draped           in the barn