she who crushes the serpent

SHE WHO CRUSHES THE SERPENT

the duration of this vowel

is the time it took for you to run through the cornfilds, arms stretched out above

to support the sky. the moon beats against your olive skin and below your feet, the stalks are trampled, sinking down to make love to the dirt, running their silk tongues over your soles as you crush them and the juice of the leaves seeps through the filds— a serpent who watches silently as you move, with strain across this whispering labyrinth staring you into the ground, pupils: mucked and mired.

what is a vowel

but the rustling in the blind spot of your eye an orbital gesture inward the swooning arc of a crop circle—

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as you pass, the moon splashes onto the backs of your calves, legs of moonshine and earth, of serpent spit and corn blood. the soil rises to swallow you but you are moving too fast and the sky too heavy a burden to hold the weight of it caves the vowel buckles

the serpent lifts ts head, fliks its sweet corn silk tongue and the next consonant ignites— a fie spreading through the filds, blazing through the night.

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