When I was twelve, I found the carcass
of a copperhead in the gutter outside our house.
It was dead, but still, its skin danced.
There was life somewhere inside.
So I took a stick from the bonfire
in the backyard, its tip red and smoldering,
and I held it to the snake’s skin, which sizzled,
and split, and maggots tumbled from the fissure.
I was mesmerized, jealous:
here the snake, the temptation,
so easily vanquished.
How could I achieve the same?
How to break this body apart, so
no man could blame me for his downfall?
How to split this skin away
from hands always searching for my fleshy core?
To dance without having to live—it felt like a secret
as sacred as Icarus wings, as Sisyphus stones.
“Tell me,” I begged, jabbing with my stick.
The maggots caught fire, curled up, and blew away.
In Memoriam
Photo © Gundula Vogel. All rights reserved.
