Your gifts were never meant for me. Bejeweling my wrists, enveloping me with diamonds, Your eyes, your smile, your forked tongue betray you. Beauty is your lure. You feed on hope.
Snake Eye (Based on the mural by Velia De Iuliis, “Rattlesnake and Rabbit”, at the Brandstater Gallery, La Sierra University, Riverside, California)
Upon the wall colossi play a game of highest stakes. The black-tailed jack ensnarled in coils, a doe stands still as stagnant time. Low on luck, if not snake bit, she stares upon the serpent’s face and tightly grasped in his embrace, awaits the choice the captor makes. For Crotalus Scutulatus, Mojave’s scaly prince, has crawled out from the creosote brush and bared his savage jaws. With thrusted tongue he tastes the odor of her fear, senses her tremble through the air. To know his years she counts the rings and ciphers all the little lives that fed this cholo of the cholla to pay the cost price of her deprived life. Clutched, her empty womb reveals she cannot feed him. Not now, not soon, but when? Fangs withdrawn, the snake eye infers a deal is nigh. He judges. She waits. One poised to act, one frozen in the other’s sight. Upon the wall I learn the cost that living takes, the risk of mercy out upon the barren waste. I wonder how to choose an offspring’s fate. Doug Bro July 2020
Your gifts were never meant for me.
ReplyDeleteBejeweling my wrists, enveloping me with diamonds,
Your eyes, your smile, your forked tongue betray you.
Beauty is your lure. You feed on hope.
I love it!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSnake Eye
ReplyDelete(Based on the mural by Velia De Iuliis, “Rattlesnake and Rabbit”, at the Brandstater Gallery, La Sierra University, Riverside, California)
Upon the wall colossi play a game of highest stakes.
The black-tailed jack ensnarled in coils, a doe stands still as stagnant time. Low on luck, if not snake bit, she stares upon the serpent’s face and tightly grasped in his embrace, awaits the choice the captor makes.
For Crotalus Scutulatus, Mojave’s scaly prince, has crawled out from the creosote brush and bared his savage jaws. With thrusted tongue he tastes the odor of her fear, senses her tremble through the air.
To know his years she counts the rings and ciphers all the little lives that fed this cholo of the cholla to pay the cost price of her deprived life. Clutched, her empty womb reveals she cannot feed him. Not now, not soon, but when?
Fangs withdrawn, the snake eye infers a deal is nigh. He judges. She waits. One poised to act, one frozen in the other’s sight.
Upon the wall I learn the cost that living takes, the risk of mercy out upon the barren waste.
I wonder how to choose an offspring’s fate.
Doug Bro
July 2020
This is a fantastic piece!
Delete