VARIATION 6: SNAKE

by Alice B. Fogel

 

 

Have use of edges. 
Alongside field—crosshatch trees

to their meadow pedestal.
Way is seam

here beneath eaves where when further
forest rises and effaces sun

camouflaging silver bleed
congeals.  Smaller than rivers

go sleek like rivers and like
rivers slip unseen

below earthly surface things— 
pour with invisible volition

between storm-tamped
weeds—slip clear

through stone to lick
fresh linings of eggs.

Chromatic curvature—scale
horizon’s arc littered with all

closest slightest movements
of toad and vole—small

measures of hungry sight. 
More beautiful than wind more

grounded than birds
more clever and calm

than time what more
need for body than this:

To crush sloughed leaves
with slim sounds no louder in heaven

than none—migrate
through tunnel skin meant to briefly

burrow in—emerge
clean removed and hunt whole again.

 

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