A plain-bellied snake waits near the bridge
in the park. Her body is gray and heavy.
Her skin looks to feel of hard fruit

packed with sand. For two days, her body
moves like a nightmare: once quick
swim into the lake, once shifts so small

I think my mind is full of tricks. Creeping
things against the vault of the sky.
Above, large birds stomp their dead babies

back into the nest. Their dead babies
become the nest.
——————The birds we kept
in cages fought any mirror;
God & animal, God versus image,
——————God versus God.