Snake

BY Laren McClung

Immersed in whiskey the heart of a snake
is a drink. Nothing good can come

of drinking it. It pulses at the bottom
of its little glass, still knowing. Somewhere,

we are having dinner on a summer night
in Copley Square. You are laughing

and telling a woman that you love her.
My summer dress is flooded with the wind,

and, like in dreams, I can’t speak out. I never
learned to interfere. This is not a dream.

Here’s what happened next: I opened up
his mouth and entered him, the heart

a mess of vines, a woman’s hair, his teacher’s
voice echoing throughout the chambers.

 

Biography

LAREN MCCLUNG received an MFA from the Creative Writing Program at New York University. She’s been the recipient of a Goldwater Hospital Teaching Fellowship, a Teachers & Writers Collaborative Van Lier Fellowship, and a Veterans Writing Fellowship at NYU where she lead a year-long workshop in creative writing to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She currently teaches in New York City and is co-editing the anthology Inheriting the War: Poetry and Prose by Children of the Vietnam War.

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