SNAKE SKIN

Artfully espaliered against a south
Wall, the vines are overgrown and twisted,
But fruiting wildly. When I come to harvest
The generous grapes, I find in a tangle of growth

Chest-high where a snake has pressed his path between
Entwining, fitly constricting filaments,
And knowing the time was ripe, his serpent sense
Forced his length to shed the fissile skin,

So he could go on growing. Mere’s the withered
Transparent integument, fragile, scales half-hidden,
Designed perhaps to remind us non-ophidians
It may be time for us to burst our mythic

Skins, to risk the vulnerability,
Then breathe more broadly and claim a freer me.

(64, November 4, 1992)

->