Great folds of flabby skin 

carpeting out from necks, their hips,

their shells like parched boulders,

their spindly fingers here, and flickering tongues,

a tail tapered to a spine—a rattle.

Heaped of themselves they curl 

on trimmed branches,

coiling round plastic logs or 

totally motionless 

beneath heat lamps. One such ancient 

creature wakes, he moves with

jerks and snaps and the creaking of his bones,

his moving skeleton beneath his dry, soft skin.

On the other side of the dusty panes,

they still hear the noise of people. 

A girl pretends to be bitten; she doesn’t

fool her sister. A family 

dissipates and coalesces 

like a particulate living thing.

A woman says of two rattlesnakes, 

“They are disgusting. Look 

at their big bodies.” And 

they are big. The 

pale one curves like a river;

the other one is brown

and nestles in its partner’s 

great crooks of flesh.

We look at them and wonder, 

being cold-blooded, 

must they cling to each other’s curves

for warmth?