SWARM + SNAKE

 

Poems by Jericho Hockett


 
 

SWARM

Girls sometimes roil

with fear they say

we’d do anything

to avoid a sting run shrieking

like our mothers but they

mishear buzzing for screams

a whole hive’s secret vocabulary

warning of danger they

misapprehend our movement’s

motivation our agitation is

no worry we are a swarm

and this hysteria

a riot

fear is a mask mothers wear

shouting our skin is

vulnerable to pain

but stings are rarely

deadly our running stirring up

by eagerness to make fire

smoke insects out roast and eat

some of their young

lay our own eggs

in the bodies

of others

SNAKE

they hiss sneer venomous

as if crawling belly

to the ground in these times

were so absurd I’ve heard my kind

referred to as vile

seen the shovel’s shadow fall

smelled the writhing nest scorched in flame

and for what?

there was no sin

before sin I slithered in moonlight

through lilies

basked in a thousand birds’ songs

in the sun I even flew

on opalescent wings it seems a dream

now dire to conjure even using words

as my very tongue is synonymous with “lie”

so not mute but muted I cast my eyes

up to the fruited branches green I

wish that I could taste and know

the truth to be set free to fly

but the sky is too full of dangers

jealous gods lurking in the clouds

but if I could reach the fruit

I would still share it now

with those gods’ children

that they might cease their angry

stomping through the grass

 

Jericho Hockett is a partner to Eddy, mom to Evelynn, poet, social psychologist, teacher, forever student, and dreamer, who is most whole among the trees. In work and play, she quests for meaning and identity, inspired by relationships among the living (and the dead), resisting oppression, and empowering self-determination. Her research appears in various academic journals, and her poems appear in Snakeroot: A Midwest Resistance ‘Zine, Ichabods Speak Out: Poems in the Age of Me, Too, SageWoman, and Heartland! Poetry of Love, Resistance, and Solidarity, with more works always brewing.