Snake Man

I in your presence resemble a hognose snake
           Lying on the spadelike scales

Of its back, in farinaceous dust, like a rope
           Of dough. And when you flip me

With the toe of a shoe, I do not (oh no) flip
           Back, for unlike that saphead

The hognose, I know many positions in which
           To be dead. And when you smile

To describe, in your up-to-date patois, all love
           As aleatory, or

Desire and indifference as twin winnowers,
           Then I with my upturned nose

(Keeping my venom even then to myself) hiss
           Softly at your shoelaces.

The image of a snake lying at the feet of “you” is an allusion to a biblical metaphor, where Satan, the serpent, nips at the heel of God in a last desperate attempt to avenge himself. This poem is haunting in that the snake is in control of the situation, while you are clueless about its tricks. Brock uses first and second person perspectives (“I in your presence”, line one), first person being the snake and second person being the reader. Being addressed makes me feel included as a passive character in the story, where my fate is directed by the snake. The poem never reveals explicitly what the snake is plotting, which adds to a reader’s feeling of helplessness.

There is also enjambment and an antagonist in this poem. Grammatical sentences are never completed in a line (“Of dough. And when you flip me”, line 4). Additionally, the snake, who appears in the title and throughout the poem as a symbol of lies, develops its thoughts as a human and demonstrates the human ability to be cruel. He/she is a rare first person antagonist against a second person character – the reader.