Here it comes again
the water moccasin my mother shot
when I was playing in the lake
has come back to bite me in the ***.
She stands, there, in the photograph
she had framed to sit on a table
between two big, uncomfortable chairs

my brother in boots on the wrong foot
Maggie, precious little bird, was even
too young to have to wear a shirt
in this picture

and there in my mother's fingers
dangling feet away from my
warm, little body
was a five foot snake
who still wiggled a little
when his nerves
kicked in.