Laura-Marie Taylor

a rattlesnake did its rattlesnake dance

A rattlesnake did its rattlesnake dance in the clearing,
but it had no markings. It was just tan.
So we gathered six gifts for the medicine woman,
three from each of us.
The first I presented:
a small scarlet pipe. She accepted.
The second was a Rattlesnake Feather Charm,
something all lake villages need,
but one of the feathers was wrong.
I’d made a mistake that the old woman noticed.
So all bets are off.
“You see our problem with rattlesnakes here,” she said.
The rattlesnake god was not pleased.
So we walked through a tunnel of grass.