From The Literary Review
ENCOUNTER
At the bottom of the bank,
in the dry creekbed that separates
pasture from cornfield,
the carcass lay wedged
under a shelf of slid rock
cow probably, maybe a horse,
the exposed bones
water-buffed white.
With my walking stick I pried
the stones and turned the head
over for a better look,
and when neck snapped
from hollow throat,
a copperhead lifted, looked
one way, then the other,
seemed to size me up
flicking its tongue
and deem me harmless
who could have struck him
dead with my stick, and would have,
but was afraid
it lazily slithered out
metallic in the sun, and up
over the jaw, its tail
still winding into the mouth
cavity when its head emerged
from any eye socket, then its
whole body sloughed the skull
and slid down into the tall grass
I watched twitch where it passed
silent into the noise of crows
lifting from dry cornstalks.
I let out a deep breath,
sorry now to have willed
the snake harm when we had
both traveled all our lives
to arrive safely at this
same place, at the same time.
Beth Houston has recent work appearing in the Yale Review, College English, and Feminist
Studies.
