Cyrus & the Snakes

My brother holds a snake by its head. The whole

length of the snake is the length

of my brother’s body. The snake’s head

is held safely, securely, as if my brother

is showing him something in the distant high grass.

I don’t know why he wants to hold them,

their strong bodies wrapping themselves around

the warmth of his arm. Constricting and made

of circles and momentum; slippery coolness smooth

against the ground. Still, this image of him,

holding a snake as it snakes as snakes

do, both a noun and verb and a story

that doesn’t end well. Once, we stole an egg

from the backyard chicken coop

and cracked it just to see what was inside: a whole

unhatched chick. Where we

expected yolk and mucus was an unfeathered

and unfurled sweetness. We stared at the thing,

dead now and unshelled by curiosity and terrible youth.

My brother pretended not to care so much,

while I cried, though only a little. Still, we buried it

in the brush, by the creeping thistle that tore up

our arms with their speared leaves, barbed

at the ends like weapons stuck in the rattlesnake grass.

But I knew, I knew that he’d cry if he was alone,

if he wasn’t a boy in the summer heat being a boy

in the summer heat. Years later, back from Mexico

or South America, he’d admit he was tired

of history, of always discovering the ruin by ruining

it, wrecking a forest for a temple, a temple

that should be simply left a temple. He wanted it

all to stay as it was, even if it went undiscovered.

I want to honor a man who wants to hold a wild thing,

only for a second, long enough to admire it fully,

and then wants to watch it safely return to its life,

bends to be sure the grass closes up behind it.