This Child Born of a Dragon’s Race

Snaky legs indicate chaos,

Wrote Sy Hoahwah. Is that so?

I guess so. My legs started off

Looking reasonably human

But got snakier as I fell.

Maybe it’s a mistranslation,

Misunderstood early Hebrew

All these years, all these religions

Later. No one took his legs off.

The serpent just got snakier,

Like all the tales from all the lands,

Of dragons, eels, and snake maidens,

Of things the gods confined to caves

Knowing how humans fear the weird

Enough to kill or worship it

Or both, make potions from its bones.

But am I, tottering and frail

On increasingly snake-like stems

That won’t hardly keep under me,

With venomous fangs that bite me,

Indicative, still, of chaos?

I’d like to think so. Can’t you feel

The world shake with its need to share

A growing instability?