Rattlers Make Love

We move alike.
We sleep in the same saving grasses,
under similar rocks.
Why not?

What is it about you?
Spellbinding eyes?
The desert mouse halfway down your gut?
Your rough brown scales?
Your brave tangle with that hawk?
The depth of your venom?

That first glimpse of you,
I almost bit myself.
How cute you look when coiled.

We are lovers as much
as anything in this universe.
Can we now sigh
instead of rattle?

back to issue

John Grey is an Australian poet, U.S. resident, recently published in New World Writing, California Quarterly and Lost Pilots. Latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert and Memory Outside The Head are available through Amazon. Work upcoming in Isotrope Literary Journal, Seventh Quarry, La Presa and Doubly Mad.