I watched the gulls fall back again, one by one, swallowed whole by the snake. One floated serene on the iced water near the half-under rock. Her bones cracked in its stomach, and it looked at me with devil's eyes. A forked tongue felt my apathy and its tail unwound from me, letting me go, releasing my confusion. The snake hissed against the placid slow mundane Saturday afternoon and softly whispered.
Snakes hiss in the brush after sunset, hunting, stalking, clarifying.
The snake made me hate her and see what her love had been for. The snake made my face raw in February and cooled my sweaty skin in July. The snake saved me and raised me up, and killed me like it killed her. The snake opened my eyes as the trees and leaves bent under its weight. I was terrified once by the wind.