“Renters and Snakes” by J.S. Absher

On bright days, when we came into the dark,
she looked like a white rope strung and looped
in the rafters overhead. But when our eyes
got used to the dim light, we could see it was
a snake’s belly—a blacksnake long as the barn
was wide, or so imagination claims
when it unrolls her like a green hose.

That was the summer the big man came, riding
a sorrel mare, to round up the steers and heifers,
but rain and lightning drove him into the barn.
The man rode tall on his horse, in rattlesnake boots.
Once, he lifted me to the pommel and rode me
over his land. Feels good, don’t it? he said,
as his pastures rolled out their green carpet.

When Daddy found the snake stretched headless
on the barbs of the fence, he buried her in the meadow,
but told us after we’d moved to another rented
house in another man’s field. Renters and snakes,
they don’t count for much, he said. The good Lord
made them from clay, and both are treated like dirt.
His eyes turned on me were green with the hunger.

For more poems by Absher, check out FIVE Vol. 1 No. 5.