In the dead of night, 
you wake to find a snake, 
coiled in your head. 

You see the curve of scales 
as the snake raises its head, 

spreads its hood, wide, 
see the fork of its tongue, 
watch as it flickers, 

flickers inside your brain, 
testing its folds for prey. 

You know that snake, 
but you cannot remember 
the name it goes by. 

No consonant, no vowel 
sits on the tip your tongue. 

Anaconda, 
Boa Constrictor, do not 
squeeze out the name. 

Copperheads and Diamondbacks 
kill with different patterns. 

The alphabet 
does not stir your memory. 
You fear the snake 

struck while you were sleeping—
venom already slices 

the connections of your soul. 

Gary S. Rosin’s

poetry and haiga have appeared, or are forthcoming, in various literary and poetry magazines such as Concho River Review, Eastern Structures, Failed Haiku, Harbinger Asylum, KYSO Flash, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Poetry24, The Legal Studies Forum, The Lift, The Wild Word, and Visions International; as well as in several anthologies, including contemporary haibun (Volume 17, Red Moon Press, 2022), Faery Footprints (Fae Corp Publishing), Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga (Dos Gatos Press), Texas Poetry Calendar (Kallisto Gaia Press), Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston (Mutabilis Press), and elsewhere.

His poem “Viewing the Dead” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Two of his poems appear in Silent Waters, photographs by George Digalakis (Athens, 2017). He is the author of two chapbooks, Standing Inside the Web (Bear House Publishing, 1990) and Fire and Shadows (Legal Studies Forum, 2008) (offprint).

Selections of Gary’s poetry and photography can be found at his website, 4P Creations: http://4pcreations.com

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Out of the Haze, collaborative haiga by photographer George Digalakis and poet Gary S. Rosin, which was nominated by MacQ for the Red Moon Anthologies, and selected for publication in Contemporary Haibun 17 (Red Moon Press, 2022).

⚡ Crossing Kansas by Gary S. Rosin in The Wild Word (7 February 2020); includes audio of the poet reading his poem

⚡ Two Readings: “Apparition” and “Black Dogs” by Gary S. Rosin for Texas Poetry Calendar 2015 at the Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, Texas (20 September 2014)