It was a shadeless day when she became
almost Eurydice. She had no Orpheus,
no man with a voice like a slivered shard
of glass. There was only a woman sitting
alone in the yard. Her eyes drank heat shimmer
and sun glimmer, the powerful body curled
and coiled like the muscle of a rope.
Its belly slither, its slow, serpentine path
before it settled motionless. Its flicking tongue,
the glint of its yellow eye. Its heavy, spade shaped head,
its perfect scales, the pearly luminescence of its knife tip tail.
Her eyes forgot whether its body was tan or gray or gold
because danger has no color. Barefoot, almost Eurydice
entered the safety of her cool dark house, shed the skin
of her fear and left it shadowless on the floor.