Laying Down With Snakes
Lay down noiselessly,
as long as you stay still
and breathe lightly, then they will ignore you.
You can smile under your eyelids,
you can pretend that they have legs
and wear business suits.
You can imagine milking the poison
out of their hollow fangs;
like sperm it will ease your mind.
In the viper pit
let the forked tongue's sense your resignation,
let the forked tongue's lick your meekness.
Let the forked tongue's wrap you up
in their sinuous dreams.
On Monday morning they will be waiting
to interrogate your presence,
Their tight shiny pants dick slick
and cocksure. Their pointing shoulder pads
puffed up like rock adders,
high hips sharp and akimbo
pencil-sharp eyes probing,
testing your capacity to still undulate.
If you are male, screw red thorns upon
your rodent parts.
The mice around your spine
are freezing,
wrap them in fox skins
you haggled for at the meat-market.
Grin with your back teeth.
If you are female,
If you have hands,
then hold them up, reveal your armpits,
cream your pheromone-laced musk
into their morning coffee.
Loll with the water-cooler moccasins,
laugh at their venomous jokes.
Feed them scraps of velvety rabbit skin
you have shaved off your inner thighs.
Wear your skirt just a little bit higher.
At the end of the work day,
if your eyes are filled with dried-up slime
remove the crud with a cattle-prod
then slither into a deep sleep.
Dream of eating the juicy white meat
of roasted pythons,
or disemboweling a writhing nest
of Anacondas
with a razor-sharp, steely forked tongue.
.
Copyright © Eric Ashford | Year Posted 2023
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