by Terry Hall Bodine
It loops leisurely across the back drive,
six feet long and as thick as my wrist,
black snake no more menacing
than a stiff length of rope. My daddy
hates snakes. Whacked with the edge
of a garden hoe, backed over by the pick-up,
the thing still shimmies against the tires.
Daddy finally fires a couple bullets
through its head—damn hard to kill,
that snake. Like love. Where it coils in the pit
of my heart I feel the quiver of its tongue;
I sense it seductively shift its rattle.
[Check out Terry Hall Bodine's back porch advice]
