The glory of snakes

by | Nov 6, 2012 | Poetry

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

About The Author

Djelloul Marbrook

Djelloul (jeh-lool) Marbrook was born in 1934 in Algiers to a Bedouin father and an American painter. He grew up in Brooklyn, West Islip and Manhattan, New York, where he graduated from Dwight School and attended Columbia. He then served in the U.S. Navy. Marbrook blogs at www.djelloulmarbrook.com and is the author of two books of poetry (Far from Algiers, Kent State; Brushstrokes and Glances, Deerbrook Editions) and three novellas (Artemisia’s Wolf, Saraceno, and Alice Miller’s Room), with other works forthcoming. A retired newspaper editor, he lives in New York with his wife Marilyn.