Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, GEO-BESTIARY: 31, by JAMES HARRISON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

GEO-BESTIARY: 31, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: A few long miles up hog canyon
Last Line: To my breast, a truly inventive suicide.
Alternate Author Name(s): Harrison, Jim
Subject(s): Animals; Fear; Snakes; Serpents; Vipers


A few long miles up Hog Canyon
this rare late-March heat is drawing forth
the crotalids from their homes of earth and rock
where they had sensed me scrambling over them
while hunting quail. It is the dread
greenish brown Mojave I fear the most,
known locally as "dog killer," lifting
its wary head higher than you think possible,
coiling its length beneath itself
as if a boxer could carry a single, fatal punch.
This is the farthest reach from the petting zoo
like my Africa's dream black mamba.
I tell her I'm sorry I shot a cousin rattler
in our bedroom. How idiotic. She's a cocked
.357 snake, rattling "Get the hell out of here.
This land is my land when I awake.
Walk here in the cool of morning or not at all."
She's my childhood myth of the kiss of death
and I'm amazed how deftly I fling myself backward
down a long steep hill, my setter Rose frightened
by my unconscious, verbless bellows. Perhaps
if I'm dying from some painful disease
I'll catch and hold you like Cleopatra's asp
to my breast, a truly inventive suicide.





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