Speaking to Snakes

When I found the snakeskin, I knew it was a sign
snakes were talking to me. I needed to listen.
My son held up the skin. It reached the length of him.
I came upon a pair of copperheads mating by a dry creek—

snakes were speaking to me. I needed to listen.
They wound earth-brown bodies together, tasted the air, quivering.
I came across copperheads mating by a dry creek.
It was September. The snakes sunbathed in fallen leaves.

They wound exquisite brown bodies together. Tense air quivered.
“Do you know rattlesnakes give live birth?” my friend said.
It was September. The snakes sunbathed in sycamore leaves
like the giant rattlesnake I leapt across at a river baptism with my father.

I didn’t know rattlesnakes gave live birth when I saw
a Pentecostal preacher, his arms laden with rattlesnakes, emerge from the heat
at the Tallapoosa River. I leapt across the king of rattlesnakes. My father
beheaded the snake as she sunbathed. He gave me her bleeding tail.

A sweating Pentecostal preacher emerged, arms laden with rattlesnakes
and gospel: “They shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents.”
My father killed the snake with a garden hoe. Gave me her bloody rattle.
“I named her Dante,” my friend said of a pregnant rattlesnake by her gate.

The gospel says believers will speak in new tongues—they’ll pick up serpents.
Angry white men recited the scripture, hollering about Eve’s sin.
“I named her Dante,” my friend whispered. By the gate
the origin of womanhood is sewn with snakes (so said the men).

Beware the wrath of men who holler of Eve’s sin.
When she was a girl Anzaldúa drank a rattlesnake’s blood.
Our origins: women’s bodies as fields sown with tears.
That night in a dream I saw through snake eyes.

After Anzaldúa drank a rattlesnake’s blood,
she inhabits Coatlicue, snakes-her-skirt, incarnation of the underworld—
in a dream that night she saw through snakes’ eyes:
I passed between the two fangs, / the flickering tongue.

Having come through the mouth of the serpent, / swallowed,
I held up the old skin. It reached the length of him, my son.
Now I dwell in darkness, taste the night with my tongue.
When I found the snakeskin, I knew it was a sign.