DeKAY’S BROWN SNAKE

It is the most common unseen snake,
sliding through the work of last year’s
red oak and maple, taupe leaves now asleep
under my azaleas and Dutch irises.

DeKay’s is the shy kid in the
serpent seventh grade. The tween
bracing the green gymnasium
wall at the ophidian school dance.

Not just shy, but short, like so many
middle-schoolers — typical max. size
a foot, with occasional giants of
twenty inches — like the six-foot kid
who flunked eighth grade and was held back.

Its chitinous scales are pastel, not oil —
tan, cream, and brown, sometimes a handful
of black-spots, as if Shelley’s fountain
pen mistakenly spurted on a blank
page — mottled skin disappearing
into the Piedmont duff.

Typically, I hear their rustling before sighting —
they are cryptic as a fired principal.

Eight years ago I picked up a fat female
and two-dozen young parachuted out,
only to scatter in October’s leaves
like camoed members of some covert
Navy Seal action.

I’m at a loss for its love of slugs.

Gary D. Grossman
Medusa’s Kitchen, 10–18–23