Before a snake sheds skin, she goes half blind
for just a week or two. The fluid she excretes,
a grey-white lubricant to ease the slide,
pools under the scale of each eye
like warm milk filling up a metal spoon.
When the world blurs,
she searches out a rough surface
to rub against, loosening first
the old skin from her head, where it will split,
then working down. If done correctly,
the skin should come off in one easy piece,
a hollow tube of flimsy wax paper, a shroud of self
like the seat of jeans you’ve worn all week,
that absence so distinct.
I used to find them at the summer house,
not snakes but just their skin,
outside the bolted wooden door that led
to a dark cellar pit. I wanted to pick them up,
to see through them the world in sepia
cut into diamonds, or press them flat
over my own skin like a graft
to harden its texture. My mother warned me
I could catch salmonella, so I only looked, and pulled
the iron latch up, stared inside for any sign
of coiling against the blackness, stirring dust,
or straining moon-grey eyes.