Snake and Toad

Published in Forge (Fall 2012)

Braided into the scrub brush,
I saw them,
Snake and toad,
black garter slender as my beckoning finger,
except for its bulging jaw
stretched madly around half the toad,
head already gone,
belly the blue-white of fern tendrils still curled underground,
motionless except for the ripple of skin
stretched thin across its still-beating heart.