Snake Poem by Seth Yuhi Musinga

As I was driving on the dirt road country,
I saw ectothermic, amniotes vertebrate
covered in scales,
black feline cross the road with an unhurried,
sidewinding.

As it passed,
hissing and raising the upper portion
of the bodies to stand erect,
and it's great, creamy, black-slitted globes,
were caught in the headlights,
crawled like flies over the blue enamel of the sea,
every nerve in my body seemed like,
a strained harp-string ready to snap at a touch.

The spectral vision dissolved into the bushes,
leaving me with a thumping heart
and my spirit beat itself like
a caged bird against its prison bars in vain,
it pass like a phantom into the shadows,
its sound is like a silver-fountain,
that springeth in a golden basin,
and it vanished like a phantasmagoria.

My mind rested upon the thought,
as chasing butterflies might rest together on a flower.

By Seth Yuhi Musinga