Doug Ramspeck

The light slinks 
into the woods

behind the house 
where we live 

beneath the velocities 
of birds and dream 

that the hieroglyphics 
of stars speak

to us in a language
of dark fire, 

like the rat snake 
we saw once 

curled in a hollow log 
beyond the fence. 

The log had a skin 
of mushrooms 

on the top, 
and the snake

had black scales
and otherworldly eyes. 

And when we
leaned close, the creature 

made a sound
like a primitive flame 

crackling into the fabric
of the day. 

And the sound 
followed us 

into winter, 
when the weak-willed

light above the trees
slipped across

the thin skin 
of snow 

and the stasis
of the ice. 

And we imagined
the snake desperate

to keep the heat
inside its body, 

the way, in the night,
we wrapped our limbs

around each other 
to keep warm.