Woman, Snake, Man

Because of Eve men assume 
there’s a snake inside women,
a dark internal dream state  
where she lives beyond 
the mere form that exists.

They believe that to know a women 
you must enter her fully, but that
denies her an identity beyond 
flesh and sex and sighs.

Some men see women as dreams
(come true)— and when she  
presses her mouth to their scars,
snakes her tongue along their flesh 
and fully tastes their wound, they 
call her unholy and abandon her.

In Asia, Pythons swallow more men whole
but only the ones with woman in their 
slithering innards make the news.
When the serpents flesh is parted she 
stands up fully clothed in the corn field
flesh made lore, then word made flesh,
a gift all the dumb struck men around 
her are unsure of how to open.