"The Birth of Faith Healing "
Timber rattler,
when will I learn
how to hold you?
In the sunlight
I can’t see your coils
nestled among straight pine needles
or the brown curl of last year’s leaves,
but you sense my heat.
You feel me approach
loudly in boots
that want to unlace themselves,
feet that long to bathe
unfettered in mountain coolness,
touch all things cold and reckless,
the diamonds of your scales
like frosty stars to wish upon.
Through your pupils’ vertical slits
faith falls all the way
from the garden of Eden
to here beside rotting crabapples.
Your poison lies disguised,
a test of my beliefs,
to hold the devil
and his benediction of venom,
to drink the warm milk into my veins,
dream-deep the sleep of angels
and birth no child.
© 2005 Jim Doss
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