WE SIT BY THE RIVER DRINKING COKE

LYNN FINGER

We sit by the river drinking coke, and we decide to wade. The spring river is fed by snowpack, and can run fast, but we find a calm shallow, and go in only up to our knees. The water is fresh as melted glass, and clear to the bottom. I step through with bare feet and see a snake, submerged completely, nose pointed at my ankle. It has the triangular head of a venomous one. I jump out.  We stand on the rocky bank.

At first you want to cut it in two with a shovel, but I see it slither up the strands and call your attention elsewhere while it does. Then you said it can’t be, snakes don’t swim. We set a fire, make scrambled eggs, and as night comes, settle in the open in your flatbed truck. I stay awake.

I know a chiseled head. We are miles from anywhere, surrounded by waving cottonwoods and terrain whose landmarks all look the same. I watch the night mists shift. The moonlight shines through like Klieg lights, and as you still sleep, a large arrowhead-shaped cloud hovers over.

It looks alien, like we must appear to the snakes along this river, and yet, I heard the appeal in the frozen defense of the one I met, which wasn’t alien to me. It felt like a win, to let it go its way.

Lynn Finger’s (she/her/hers) works have appeared in 8Poems, Book of Matches, Fairy Piece, Drunk Monkeys, and ONE ART: a journal of poetry. Lynn also had released a poetry chapbook, “The Truth of Blue Horses,” published by Alien Buddha Press. Lynn edits Harpy Hybrid Review, and her Twitter is @sweetfirefly2.