Cold-blooded
Laura Garrison
Your disappearance added
drama to our mundane lives.
Each time we slipped a sock-
clad foot inside a winter boot,
or reached into the darkness
of the pantry, feeling for
a jar of peanut butter or plum
jam, we thought of you.
Then Mom emptied the crumb tray
and shook your skeleton loose,
a flaking ouroboros, black
as nightmare, dry as toast—
and suddenly we knew our house
was just a house again.
Copper-bellied snake. by J.W. Hill
18