Poem by Chris Gillen
After Watching a Snake
And in this disconcerting creature
a tiny hunger
—Jorie Graham
Myosin heavy chain in muscle
roped to bone,
breathless head bent in strain,
narrow tail
twisted as around the rod of
Hermes,
neck buried in crystallography
like ribless
vertebrae deep under pitted
scales.
This hungry fibril reappears,
head above
grassy sinews and eyes locked on
actin flies,
pauses until the tropomyosin
lash slips aside,
baring tender fossa below.
Again
and again the thick filament grips
thin abdomens,
knits nanometer sutures of power,
stitches
burly fibers to cold-blooded
molecular desire.
Publishing Information
- Opening quote from “I Watched a Snake” by Jorie Graham in Erosion (Princeton University Press, 1983).
Art Information
- "Green Snake Coiling a Branch" © Thomas Hafeneth; public domain.
Chris Gillen teaches animal physiology, introductory biology, and science writing at Kenyon College. His research group studies how larval and adult mosquitos regulate the volume and salt concentration of their internal fluids.
Gillen is author of The Hidden Mechanics of Exercise (Belknap Press, 2014) and Reading Primary Literature (Pearson, 2006). He was the recipient of the 2017 M. Patricia Morse Award for Excellence and Innovation in Science Education from the Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology.
