Get Over It!

Between me and the clothesline--

a bull snake whose  blotches blend

with wet dirt and dead leaves.

No hiss or fake rattlesnake coil,

still-- silly me--I shield myself

with a plastic laundry basket.

Last summer, I was enthralled

by a bull snake in my apple tree.

Disguised by the mottled bark,

 it stretched toward a robin’s nest,

and, yes, I couldn’t help but wonder

what the heck Eve was thinking.

The year before, a pair mated

near the garage door, and so much for 

rural advice, “They eat rats.  They eat mice.”

I said it twice before the urge took hold

to hack them with a rake. Instead, I  yelled, 

“Go get a room at the bullsnake motel!”

Even now, there’s an image I cannot erase 

​of the hapless snakes who tainted my space.