When I was young there was a copperhead
lived in the drainage ditch beyond the fence
in our back yard. Summers among the red
clusters of young blackberries we could sense
his ageless eyes upon us, so we thought--
We'd hear his evil hiss in every breeze,
and quaking we would glimpse him on the hot
flat rocks back there, warming his coils, at ease.
One day he crawled through chainlink gaps to sun
himself on our gray concrete patio.
He lay coiled like a noose, his flicking tongue
tasting my childish fear; inside I hung
onto my mother's skirt, too scared to run,
while Daddy lopped his head off with a hoe.
2 comments:
This one ought to be vivid to any young country Southerner. It is to me. You do a great job of capturing the way the threat of the copperhead once seen permeates every experience.
But when the death comes, it is worse than the fear. "Lopped" is the perfect word, intensely physical.
And the copperhead was not aware it was perceived as a threat; if it had been, it would never have visited the patio, knowing it would be killed.
An almost invisible subtlety. Nice.
Oh--I would say "who lived" instead of "lived." I have done that same move, in the interests of economy or rhythm, but it always sounds wrong to me. My ear tells me it is a New England elision, not a Southern one.
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