The Eye

I saw clear the snake’s eye
peeking through the empty hole
at that African playground.

I saw it so clear that I kept its memory,
unlike the faint remembrance
of fright, sticks and shouts

and the dark, thin body hanging loose.

It was dead poisonous, they said,
It could have killed us, children,
from a brisk bite, a lightning,

and it stared at me, unblinking,
the passionless stare I wouldn’t evade.
Was it meant for me,

the eye of evil that constricts my dreams?

See Note