Love Poem with Snakes

I never understood your devotion to snakes.
In the gloom beneath the house, 

the room you made a venom kingdom —
fish tanks of slither and scale, 

fang and forked tongue,
too much menace 

for a girl who liked her animals safe,
warm and vegetarian, 

winced at the ferrying of mice
through the kitchen. 

But I understood your adoration of my aunt.
Who would have tolerated sharing space with snakes 

except someone who made everyone at home
in their home, filled tables

with stuffed tomatoes and roast potatoes,
arancini and broccolini, mango and tiramisu? 

Still, the migraines came. Ice picks
to the brain so debilitating she’d lie in the dark 

and you, prepared by years of caring
for beings so cold 

they seemed dead,
would nurse her, your love a heat lamp

in which she basked,
uncoiling to life —

as we all did at your table,
thinking— I now see — it was a coincidence  

that the person who could thaw a frozen thing
had the warmest house. 

**

Prelude to Sleep

Two owls on the washing line, as alert as you and the child
nestling into your warmth, breath. 

Unlike rivers and prayers, the comfort flows both ways.  

Awaiting release from this overtime shift,
you think of more bidirectional ephemera: tides, 

the ceramic fish you gifted, then inherited, 

a fish in the beak of a bird that becomes part of the bird,
feeds on fish.

Could it be that, of earth’s recirculating energy,

some is destined to be entwined for lifetimes,
turn-taking as hunted and hunter, or child and mother?

The owls fly. As stillness sets in, it seems that

on this night, in another life, you slept
in a fleece-lined nest,

curled beneath your now young-one’s wing.

**

Ghost Cat

Sunlight pools on pillows,
cushions, spans of floor 

such that I say, If we had a cat
it would be sleeping here, 

often enough that my children begin
planning where we will keep its food bowl 

and litter tray, how they will warm its milk
in the mornings. I agree 

not to give away baby toys,
picture it slinking in and out, 

and then I see my son
curled in a lustrous quilt, cuddling the cat. 

I gasp at his intent and tender body,
his breath’s steady rasp,

at the awe that radiates from him
like a purr —

two creatures conjured
from love.

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Sarah Meehan lives and writes amongst the creeks and mountains of Jinibara land (Sunshine Coast hinterland). Her work has been published in Australia, Ireland, the UK and the USA, including in The Weekend Australian, Cordite Poetry Review, The Marrow, Mslexia, Crannóg Magazine, Live Encounters Poetry & Writing and Skylight 47..

 

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