Snake

Please avoid looking back at me
with cold contemptuous eyes
  as you slither swiftly forward
   intent on anothers death,
    that you may live.

   My spirit chases you,
  since I cannot.
That sensing flickering tongue,
that muscular rapture...
onwards! onwards!
  to your life
    and someone's death.

      Through moist grass,
        dank earth, decaying leaves,
        cobwebs
      and petrified flowers
    a move towards that grey mouse,
  innocent, nibbling
at something. Something nice. Quite unaware.
Of how time is so fleeting.

One moment in the warm sun,
blue skies, a breeze through its fur.
  The next, steel coils
     pushing air outwards from its lungs
        razor fangs stabbing the body
           A descent into time's quicksand
             via your stomach.

                A look backwards at me again,
                  in seething contempt
                    for my pompous values and speeches
                    about sacred life.

                  And then onwards! onwards!
                beneath the brambles deep inside that hole
              you call home.
           The mouse digests within
        and you look coldly at the blackness about.

    My spirit shrivels and retreats.