Ninety-one snakes on the road,
That’s like a flag of scales at half-mast,
Like rivulets that begin to rot,
Like vines that bleed and fossil skeletons,
A reptile uprising crushed by a reptile army;
That’s like cold and hungry children,
Warmongers rising from the dead,
Rage in city and country;
That’s like something crawling,
Like violence shedding its flesh,
Like forked tongues and silence of angels;
That’s like watching nature die,
Gill-man rising from a toxic lagoon,
A piscine horror on a bridge;
Ninety-one snakes on the road,
That’s like the Godhead in snakes.