They Do Not Dream of Fur or Feathers
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
Inside the rattlesnake she holds her nest.
Not made of twigs it is instead her scales
And then her flesh. She does not have a breast
To clutch her young to. Little growing nails
With growing fangs are what she carries in
Cold blooded muscle. Wrapped in secret shells,
Her eggs, the baby reptiles dream of sin
Against the little mammals. Venom spells
Are cast by babies after they are dropped
Among their rodent prey and birds and toads
And newts. The furred and feathered lives are chopped
With rattles mixed with poison in hell’s odes.
The unborn snakelings in their three-month naps
Dream only of their future stuns and zaps.
~ Phillip Whidden
