In The Basement Sleeps A Serpent

An apple
on her moiré red silk
sits daintily posed,
awaiting to be stripped
unto her porcelain
and in the perfect time
an apple can brew
the perfect intoxication
and piquant poison

The keys
that we rummage for
and constantly hunts
like gilded silvers
with insufficient silhouettes,
sound, weight or sex
are the same keys
that shall unlatch
the doors it bolted

The doves and crows
wear different cloaks,
guffaw different songs,
and their gusts rev
different noises
in different immensities
but in the firmament's height
they are no different
as they both escape in flight

The stream, the ravine,
the moth, the hibiscus—
Everything suspended
in between the fences
of mad and holy
possess several floors
inveigling on the façade
but in every basement
sleeps a serpent.

poem by Norman Santos
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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