Overnight, while I’d slept restless
in a flux of dreams, he’d been taken
 
again—so, twice-taken—by another
striped or spotted creature whose hunger
 
had to be met. Yesterday, I’d stepped
from the stony road’s dazzled sun
 
into tree-shadow, trying to make out
his figure stopped in darker shade.
 
Glory be to God for dappled things
slid like music through my head,
 
though his dappling was just an effect
of light and breeze that wandered
 
through the layered leaves, green stay
against sun. I took my walking stick
 
to nudge him, so he could slip away.
He shone, but did not move. His body
 
lay still, the small head crushed—
not quick enough to duck a truck’s
 
ribbed tire. I’d stopped because
he’d been stopped, his suave S-curves
 
still ribboned in green stripes. Saving
wasn’t up to me, or to the snake,
 
whose busted beauty I lamented,
how quickly quickness had left him.
 
How I wanted to step backwards
into sun, reverse the scene. Watch
 
the truck back away, the snake
plump up into life, flicker quick
                         
into brush, safe in that shadow
where all of us must end.