the time the snake spends in its edenic egg of sleep

the time the snake spends in its edenic egg of sleep,

time of stasis, and of hatching into perfection;

then, all instructions shift to time: the ageing

molt, the season’s heat, its rain, the muddy bank 

behind the gas-house, where all the crickets weep

in the ferns, and the black trickles thaw, guts turned 

inside out, and green scaly sparks shed, 

and the jagged fir sways in the deathly air,

the dormant roots swell up, anaesthetized