SLOWLY

DONNA MASINI

I watched a snake once, swallow a rabbit.

Fourth grade, the reptile zoo

the rabbit stiff, nose in, bits of litter stuck to its fur,

its head clenched in the wide

jaws of the snake, the snake

sucking it down its long throat.

All throat that snake—I couldn’t tell

where the throat ended, the body

began. I remember the glass

case, the way that snake

took its time (all the girls, groaning, shrieking

but weren’t we amazed, fascinated,

saying we couldn’t look, but looking, weren’t we

held there, weren’t we

imagining—what were we imagining?).

Mrs. Peterson urged us to move on girls,

but we couldn’t move. It was like

watching a fern unfurl, a minute

hand move across a clock. I didn’t know why

the snake didn’t choke, the rabbit never

moved, how the jaws kept opening

wider, sucking it down, just so

I am taking this in, slowly,

taking it into my body:

this grief. How slow

the body is to realize.

You are never coming back.