G-NT3806KSJP
︎

snake bit



   

                  you become
          your own poison

          the way you talk
          about everything

                 in the garden

          I would never
                  hold a snake
          and not expect
                  to get struck

                  can you kill
           what poisons you
    before it eats you
    up from the inside,
    eats you up alive

                  if you can love
    what you have vanquished
            then you can love death,
                                beloved —

            someone you know
    who helped you get across                           

                  you can get sick
                  if you want to,
    you can get sick with me —

   
Buck Downs creates poems as postcards, stickers, voicemail, and other author-published ephemera. In 2017, Furniture Press Books published a selected poems, Unintended Empire. A native of Jones County Miss., he lives in Washington, DC.