I asked you if you liked wildflowers
& you said yes & then the devil got into me
& and I asked you if you liked snakes
& then we could not hold the planets in their circuits
for our fear of each other—you like serpents,
I pray rope not to come alive
& we love wildflowers not enough
to get by what winds in them.
You could have waffled but thought it important not to,
I could have lied, and there is the glory of snakes,
how hard it is to lie about them.
Photo by Jon Nelson on flickr