Five Years Of Waking Up With A Snake On the Doorknob
Four fingers, you punch
the bulletin board with music,
sanding it smooth. You heard your first record
decades before me so I could feel them too.
I begged for those scratchy vocals
to be etched in my CDs, but you said
they reminded you too much
of Colorado Lake,
where a rattlesnake drowned
and kept on rattling.
With three breaths,
you fished out its corpse,
hung it from a nail
till it stilled.
You never told me
how it shook, how the water pounded
on your head as you tried to surface.
How you floated facedown,
feet far from the ground.
I asked why it repulsed you to no response
Two hands raised, you tore and tore
until all you had was shed skin
you wished you could wear.
I wonder if you’d believe that
it stuck and spread
to me and my walls. Sometimes
when I tap them the scales retreat
into my palms. You’ve seen me
bring them to my lips. Tell them
they’ve scared bears before.
But now I tell them they scare you.
As well as that one melody
you hummed on the shores
to muffle the pounding of the lake
and forget about the shore
how I avoid surfing disasters
as I step into the ocean it cascades over
rolls continuously while holding my heart against
the sand. I whisper carefully
my lips expelling each bubble without
it ever breaking the surface. I explain
the way I make three servings of rice
every Friday. when the weekend comes
reality will hit and I will be choking down
grains and telling myself they can’t starve.
it doesn’t cease. so I tell the sea about the things
I would do to not eat rice every Saturday
and Sunday. things my wife thought I
would be reborn as a dung beetle if I
did. then I tell it about my life as a dung
beetle. I would enjoy it. I would roll and roll
till i’ve rolled myself over and find myself
watching the stars. I wouldn’t flail my tiny legs.
and so the ocean releases me and I stand up
and inhale a million bubbles at once
Aditi Jamkhande is a writer from New England who enjoys books and long walks. Her work can be seen in Cerasus Poetry Magazine.