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And if you can bear with me
for another rattlesnake poem,

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it's strange, isn't it?

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How when you see a
snake, most of us

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have this reaction
to want to kill it.

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I think this is built
into human beings probably

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part of our survival instinct.

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But I killed this rattlesnake
and felt quite badly about it

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afterwards.

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Maybe I'm working off guilt by
reading the poem, I don't know.

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"Rattlesnake."

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We killed him with
heavy rocks, clawing

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them out of the dirt with
the tips of our fingers,

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frantic and red
faced in the heat,

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throwing them badly
worse than boys,

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until we use the heaviest
ones, compensating for our aim

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by weights and numbers, and
finally, crushed his head.

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I remember how he was crossing
the road, in a straight line,

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fat with a mouse and 14 rattles.

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But at the first blow made
an instant stand to die,

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how his excellent body
hammered up breaking his mouth

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on the boulders we threw.

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And how he fought, blind,
broken open in three places,

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head bitterly erect,
until we smashed his brain

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and he died twitching, slow
as the stub of a candle.

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And even then we were afraid
to touch him, he was so potent.

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And drove away in our cars.

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