According to the Chinese Zodiac,
Snake and Rat meet at a bar, and she slithers away
sipping something a little smoky, a little sexy,
a little jalapeño mixed with tequila, because
Light my fire, baby, light my fire, she’s thinking, ready
to devour the Rat Man whole, and the Snake Woman’s
a seductress—fire embodied, the face and body
that launched a million ships into the night, that oversexed
little human who really means no harm,
unlike Eve’s serpent of the candied apple,
but really, who wouldn’t have been seduced by that creature
so long and graceful, long and graceful,
baristas had to name a coffee after her: The Snake in the Grass
made of mint and mocha and a shot of espresso–
Ice me, baby, ice me, or what about the cocktail
of gin and vermouth and lemon and ice,
and let her sneak up on you, and why don’t you imagine
you’re stuck in the sheets, a boa constrictor slithering
up your way, and would you push her off? You’ve got
to admit that even if you’re terrified, you’re turned on,
and the Snake Woman is a seductress ready to swallow
the Rat Man whole, and he loves how she’s wise,
good with money, a little arrogant, and in Chinese culture,
if you’re called a snake, it’s a real compliment—a good eye,
the cunning to succeed, beautiful eyes, and I learn this
when I’m six, stunned, facing a yellow snake caged up
in a pet store in Pennsylvania, and when I go home,
my father reads me a fortune, tells me I’m a snake,
and when I’m fourteen, losing my temper, my mother
tells me about the family fortune teller visits before I was born,
how he warned my parents about my temper:
if I lost it too often, I’d end up a housewife with two children,
and in that moment, at fourteen, I want to cry
at my kitchen table, but my mother tells me in every
case, I marry a handsome man live happily ever after,
and I’m not romantic, but that fairytale’s carried me
through adulthood, the way I think about the animals of the zodiac,
and the Snake Woman’s a seductress,
ready to eat the Rat Man whole, and she’s compatible
with roosters and oxen, but rabbits are too much sex
for too little time, but there’s just something about a snake and a rat
playing cat and mouse at a bar—how she slithers
away, he’s intrigued—she’s hard to read, she swallows him whole,
and they forget about everyone and everything
in the world, in this scene of tension
you could cut with a knife, and it’s sexy the way
she wraps herself around him, and the rest is history, and if the fortune
teller’s right, I can hardly wait to swallow my Rat whole.
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