garter snake

i clean out the hay after days of rain
& find a flash of ribbon beneath. 
black & dull yellow flicker. i do not see
his face. just a movement. an escape. 
he buries himself deeper in the stray straw.
all his nights of peace, interrupted. 
i want to put the hay back. tell him,
"this is yours now." how rare it is to 
find a place to curl & hum. inside, 
the upstairs is too hot to haunt anymore.
when i walk up there to my tiny desk
i turn into a cloud. i lean down to talk
to the snake even though i am not even sure
if he is still there. i ask, as politely as i can,
"do you have room for one more? 
i am skilled at making myself small." 
he does not answer. i look in the yard for scales.
consider what else it would take to become
reptilian. i do like to lay out in the sun afterall.
my eyes do sometimes grow wide 
& poisonous. i resist my urge
to search for him. i want to turn the shed over.
i want to run my hands through the tall grass
& find his smooth body there. learn to move
like him on my belly. close to the ground.
away from all the terrors. where no one
can find me. that is until they go out
after the rain, removing the old hay. 
what was i to the garter snake? hands? a voice?
a lemon-flavored bowl of sunlight? 
a great shifting? there are biblically accurate angels 
in the sky at night. i leave the front door
open a crack. i am hoping he'll come meet me
so i can apologize properly. maybe we can
lay down in the hay together. my scales shiny 
in the tired moon's glow. please come back.
please come back.