Darrell Petska
Minding Snakes
The snakes we keep
wriggle and writhe
as if they want to be free,
and given a crack, a fissure
they’ll find it, slithering
into the wilds to hunt,
drawing us after their
devious scales we’ve named
according to their personalities:
Come, Invidious!
Greeneyes, show yourself!
Killer, best get on home!
True to their names, they’ll
bite perceived enemies, though
they’re wont to circle back
to our confining cages
where they thrived
on the vermin we fed them.
Darrell Petska is a retired university engineering editor and three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. His poetry appears in Verse-Virtual, 3rd Wednesday Magazine, Midwest Zen, and widely elsewhere (conservancies.wordpress.com). Father of five and grandfather of seven, he lives near Madison, Wisconsin, with his wife of more than 50 years.