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Silverhead
My sister on the shore, my father in a dingy,
Both clutch at rods, not for sparing the spoiling
But for indulging in a lost art of our people.
The lake is stocked for sport.
I remain among the weeds,
My thoughts adrift on
The copperhead that was at this moment
Becoming my leg.
Brash with shamanic impetus
It edged along the throngs of cattails,
Between the floating weeds and tadpoles
And built a temple in my brain.
I watched, I calcified
But it did not bite.
The Jivaro would have seen it bare no fangs.
I, so chilled, would have no tribe here at Wintergreen
To explain to me that he was mine, the rarest
Of the rare. A warrior’s crutch for a soft boy.
Copper sheen where once was flushed with pink.
As he slipped his way with grace to the Western hills,
Dad drew me miles from the ground,
Clutched no rod for sparing the spoiling,
Checked for holes where my god was coiling.
He had said I was too young to fish, but
At four years I knew I would own stories.
At ten, behind the houses on Butler Street
I inched across the cobble stone stepway,
Seeping through bushes and chocolate shingled alleys.
It was not as cold this morning as the copperhead.
Scaly shivers creep up my leg when I think of April.
I reach the house and expect an empty deck,
Not Sheldon, eating muffins, and reading the Vineyard Gazette.
The reason for putting pen to paper,
The man who took the teeth from monsters
And gave them song, often ballad or limerick
Now sat, motionless like a waxy wick
Soon to be kindled with kindliness.
I dropped the books beneath my arms.
We talked through breakfast. He only gave out pearls
And pictures of ink. A name bursting from the water
In hand, block letters interlinked to hold up high
What I would be called, how I was already known.
Though christened as such, it was more than recycled
Without adding new meaning, a slick venom, and an April, early fishing season baptism.
My spirit animal, man-snake, copperhead-poet,
Renamed me Michael,
And passed a year later.
