Sonnet 233: Mother and the Black Snake

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My mother pulled the black snake from the bush.
Long snake gone from fleeing to being held
twined around her arm and opened its mouth
but mother only laughed and let it twist.
Her friends who had come to party at her
barbecue wanted whiskey sours, not this
and yelled “Teresa!” parting like the waves
did for Moses when his raised scepter hissed.
My mother held on through the yard toward
the house, the cellar steps, down to the dark
cellar itself. “Go, find the mice. They’re yours,”
she said letting it go to the shadows
going back to her friends and the roasting corn.
That was my mother from the day she was born.

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