By Gillian Bennett
(contest winner)
During the race,
I found a
snakeskin
laying next to a
rotting log.
Translucent and white, tiny
scales
still visible.
Some ghost of the past,
left behind as a fragment
while the rest remained
a whole.
The other kids thought
it was something
dead,
but I knew,
transformation demands a
kind of death.
They poked at it with sticks
like they were prodding
cattle,
like they could make it move.
In inanimate defiance, it stayed
limp
in the mud,
as if to say,
be afraid,
be very afraid,
I am your future.
Limp, empty, lifeless.
As we live, so must we die.
In the same breath,
it said to me,
be not afraid,
for I am not gone.
And now, I must learn
to shed my skin,
to shatter my shell,
as the snake did,
as the hatchling does
My final trick in this
circus.
I will do it, as well as I
am able.