a few days ago I killed my first snake. horse feet missed this copperhead by a hair and i ran him down with a shovel. this one didn’t want to hurt us but couldn’t be left out to hurt someone later. because i’ve never intentionally taken the life of anything other than a bug before, i felt alive and queasy. i didn’t take his head and i didn’t put him in the bad snake freezer, either, i gently sent him over the fence with a shovel and a thought. i can appreciate the misconception of dangerous plants and critters, that anything pointing its spines or teeth directly at you wants to hurt you, when really those teeth & spines have nothing to do with you.
i have a recurring dream that a man i haven’t met yet is in my kitchen calling me baby. i hear a man tell his wife, ‘good find, honey, good find’ in an antique store on a sunday in fredericksburg and its just the sweet thing i want to hear. a guy i was developing some feelings for killed a coral snake by my horse’s pasture for me. that one we put in the snake freezer. he says i’m beautiful but we stand on different ground. every two weeks i’m still finding someone new to fall for. walking onward to find better ground ain’t hard to do. i fly over illegal burns by the bends in the blanco river, a warm stranger gifts me a nolan point in albert, texas, & i make small talk at the feed store. the woman at the feed store says she wants to learn how to use the skid steer so she can move hay & alfalfa when the boys aren’t there, & i tell her i shredded pasture with the tractor for the first time on my own just yesterday. a man in the hat shop tells a couple he’ll never see again that he’ll see them around the bend, and i head home.