Pilot Snake

had it

lived it would have grown

from twelve inches to a

hundred maybe would have

set out to eat

all the rats of the world and managed

a few would have frightened

somebody sooner or later

as it crossed the road would have been

feared and hated and shied away from

black glass lunging

in the green sea

in the long blades of the grass

but now look death too

is a carpenter how all his

helpers the shining ants

labor the tiny

knives of their mouths

dipping and slashing how they

hurry in and out

of that looped body taking

apart opening up now the soul

flashes like a star and is gone there is only

that soft dark building

death.