The Snake-charmer’s Reed  I

(Inspired by Henri Rousseau’s “The Snake Charmer”, Oil, 1911.)

Under the lush eerie greens
a snake wriggles
with a weakness for dance

as Adam wheedles and sways
in a tangle of wild
playing his ambiguous charm

His notes flicker as moonlight
lures the ingenuous snakes
to waltz his scaly spell

from a glossy stream
to his snake-dom swindle
where fingers writhe along

in a charmer’s reedy song
since his first red bite of doubt

(Published in TOWER POETRY, Vol.66, No. 2, 2018.)