Two Snakes

Clearstories

24×30 in

Archival Inkjet Print

2014

$1,750/set unframed

Two Snakes by Naila Moreira

Who knew
there could be this sisterhood
of snake?

Well, at Delphi the Python
guarded the temple, matriarchy of priestesses.
Familiar to the Pythia,
the Seer,
this stone-mimic
slept in earth’s crevice until the moment to rise—
carven skull, calcareous flecks,
polished curves.

O capital-M Man, Apollo killed the beast and took the temple.

But all that’s ancient myth.
This vision vanishes into rock—
as fearful of me as if I were Apollo.

On mountain home,
rattle an echo of Python issuing
from her chasm
then vanquished, back—wilderness-marbled
nosetip to tail
by camouflage, timber rattler brown as humus,
crumbled offspring of the rock she guards,
whispering secrets as she goes,
this here is now.

She will sleep all winter here, hibernaculum for the long freeze.

And I was startled to learn
that she recognizes and prefers
siblings to others when sharing a den,

tongue flicking, collecting
molecules of familiar scent from air, pressing
their spice to roof of mouth—
that other sisterhood, the hive, recalled
by buzz of tail
and skin to shed in growth honeycombed
white as stone—
a temple of serpent.