Whipcord
Elongated across the bitumen like a woven whipcord,
stewed by the sheen and braised by the summer,
the head is erect, arches in anticipation, in airy aggression.
Transfixed, we swerve in aversion, wary and watchful,
as the brute, terror of the imagination,
topic of tales, slithers away.
Piques a flashback to that folio of boyhood fears;
an eastern brown slides through a dream.
The Holden accelerates, the small boy braces,
steeled like a vehicular strut, then the weight
of the work boot, as brakes squeal
in a controlled skid through the writhing backbone.
Idealists may argue for the worth
of all life; farmers exist with the risk
of the eyes of cut glass and the slickest of scales.
A boy understands that adults know
what needs to be done. Terse voice
from the front: The only good snake is a dead one.
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David Atkinson is an award winning Sydney based poet; his poems have been published widely in Australia, the USA and the UK. David's awards include the Ros Spencer Poetry Prize (first place), the FAW Jean Stone Poetry Award (first place) and the Tom Collins National Poetry Prize (second and third places). David's collections The Ablation of Time (2018) and Strands and Ripples (2021) have been published by Ginninderra Press. David is a poet of memory, the human condition and the natural world. See: www.davidatkinson.com.au
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