PETER LEIGHT

The snake is all over the garden.  Sticking out its tongue, as if it’s looking for something to lick, sliding or slithering like water making a channel.  The snake knows where we are when we don’t even know where the snake is. We’ve never seen the snake close its golden eyes:  sometimes we think the snake is showing us what we want to see when we’re only seeing what the snake wants to show us.  When we’re confused the snake straightens us out, if we’re sad the snake makes soothing sounds, like letting off steam, the snake is the one who lets us know we need to be close to each other when nobody else is telling us what we need to be.  When the snake speaks it whistles, when the snake whistles it kisses the air. Now we hear the kissing snake when we listen to ourselves.

When I look in the mirror
I’m already further away,
not even looking back,
even if I don’t need to. 
Not pausing to rest:
it’s not a rest period
or a rest stop,
sometimes I think there’s somebody waiting for me
where I’m going
when I keep going,
even though nobody is.
Not sitting down and resting
or standing up and resting,
as if there’s a rear-view
mirror in my back pocket:
you need to keep going to find out if it does any good,
as when you go under
and come back up,
there’s no other way.
Not dragging my feet:
it’s not a parade where you follow the people in front of you, if they’re not                 going anywhere it happens all the time. 
When I think about stopping
honestly I just stop thinking,
pushing my hands away
and following them,
I mean if you don’t keep going you’ll never get anywhere,
is it even a trip?
Not even looking back
to see what I’m not looking at,
as if life is a lighthouse warning me away.


 

Peter Leight lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.  He has previously published poems in Paris Review, AGNI, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, New World, Tupelo Quarterly, Matter, and other magazines.