The White Snake

Away with eating apples — forbidden ones,
poisoned ones — let us eat of the snake:
the one that rippled through the upraised hands of
the Goddess, fluid and secret as her tongue.
He lifted the silver lid and there it lay —
a long white tongue, self-renewing as he
ate of it: his own tongue mingling with its flesh,
learning to taste the lost language of creatures.
Now he heard and saw a new world through them:
arcane owl and nerveless fox; geese
brassily honking; the dog, warm-eyed and lonely…
Once launched on his journey he met a fish,
gasping but wordy, threw it back in
the river; obeyed a tiny black voice and sidestepped
an ant-kingdom; then slew his horse to feed
a vociferous trio of starving ravens.
Footsure, footsore, he trudged on, with each mile
becoming more his own person — till he
chanced upon her: the difficult princess,
the father's daughter holding all men to ransom.
He won her hand when the fish swam up
from pearl depths with the lost ring; his ant-friends filled
ten sacks with the scattered millet; and the ravens
plucked from the mythic Tree that other apple,
eternal as life. The princess ate of
its gold flesh, with each bite gazing further into
his eyes till she could not come out again.
In time they were made king and queen — and the tale
could begin over… As he sits musing
after lunch, a domed platter appears
at the king's elbow, set down by a servant
trained to hide what, and that, he thinks.
One day soon he will lift the silver lid,
slice a wafer-thin disc, then taste and know.
That very night, he'll set forth on a journey…
And what the queen — that seemingly tamed
termagant, that heir of the Goddess — might think
and know and do about the small white snake
on a blue-flowered bed of rampion —
that is another story again.