SWARM + SNAKE
Poems by Jericho Hockett
SWARM
Girls sometimes roil
with fear they say
we’d do anything
to avoid a sting run shrieking
like our mothers but they
mishear buzzing for screams
a whole hive’s secret vocabulary
warning of danger they
misapprehend our movement’s
motivation our agitation is
no worry we are a swarm
and this hysteria
a riot
fear is a mask mothers wear
shouting our skin is
vulnerable to pain
but stings are rarely
deadly our running stirring up
by eagerness to make fire
smoke insects out roast and eat
some of their young
lay our own eggs
in the bodies
of others
SNAKE
they hiss sneer venomous
as if crawling belly
to the ground in these times
were so absurd I’ve heard my kind
referred to as vile
seen the shovel’s shadow fall
smelled the writhing nest scorched in flame
and for what?
there was no sin
before sin I slithered in moonlight
through lilies
basked in a thousand birds’ songs
in the sun I even flew
on opalescent wings it seems a dream
now dire to conjure even using words
as my very tongue is synonymous with “lie”
so not mute but muted I cast my eyes
up to the fruited branches green I
wish that I could taste and know
the truth to be set free to fly
but the sky is too full of dangers
jealous gods lurking in the clouds
but if I could reach the fruit
I would still share it now
with those gods’ children
that they might cease their angry
stomping through the grass
Jericho Hockett is a partner to Eddy, mom to Evelynn, poet, social psychologist, teacher, forever student, and dreamer, who is most whole among the trees. In work and play, she quests for meaning and identity, inspired by relationships among the living (and the dead), resisting oppression, and empowering self-determination. Her research appears in various academic journals, and her poems appear in Snakeroot: A Midwest Resistance ‘Zine, Ichabods Speak Out: Poems in the Age of Me, Too, SageWoman, and Heartland! Poetry of Love, Resistance, and Solidarity, with more works always brewing.