One snake sleeps in the forest, by the lake
The other in my bed

One snake knows everything but cannot move
The other knows how to read newspapers

One snake wonders how the moon will shatter
Across our desert
Across our reservoir
An implied destiny followed like a june bug toward the porch light

The cactus wonders
How long it will have to hold the water

Is it really suffering
If pain is forgotten
Or remembered differently

Or loved

When it is loved
The snakes are neon

Land beyond the carnivorous acid burn of Austin
Slither across America
And Eurasia and Ireland and Holland

There will be a bear who will come and break the ice shelf

There is a june bug who will look for light

There is sand in the engine