Into whose garden do you go? Remember the clove scent of the pinks 

and the berries in their ruby glory?

But a snake lurks there, doesn’t it?

He doesn’t even have to whisper

because fear so easily catches in the back of your throat

and you do without fruit in your cereal that day.

The next morning you step out with trepidation—

but it’s disappeared—just a baby anyway—

curled on a leaf,

having climbed the canes.

Your fear must have been fear of something greater

only represented by the harmless snake.

Even before then, rumors must have arrived—lithe bodies

that slithered through branches, but those only occurred in more

mythic realms or times. You’ve never tried

to kill one, leave them alone, thinking

they, too, have their role to play.

But in all the years since, you’ve only witnessed

that one climbing among the raspberries.

And that morning, you were the giant, covering the sun, creating

the shadow. You were the cloud turning the air cold.

All that power you weren’t aware you had

and so fled to eat your cereal with only milk for flavor

when you could have had so much more.