For months of morning darkness he heard
his goats call “Ah! ah!” for the milking pan,
while he stoked the coal fire, melted the silver,
cooled and hammered, heated and hammered,
old hand holding to the work without smashing a finger.

On her twelfth birthday her father tucked
the dowry bracelet underneath her pillow.

She always wore the silver coil,
on her bare arm around her thin wrist,
like a milk snake’s rust bands-curling.

She learned how rattlesnakes entwine,
dozens roiling in a den, the female
reverberating to the males’ vibrations,
smelling with her tongue until she lifts her tail.

When her time came she’d labor
like a python mother that glides miles
to find an antwarp’s hollow,
curls her warmth around her hundred eggs
and gently squeezes till they hatch.

Each night the father spluttered for his breath,
as though the smooth dry rings of a constrictor
gripped his sweaty chest. He prayed she’d be
betrothed before his eyes were pebbles in a skull.

He would leave her the lemon orchard,
though fruit hung lightly on the boughs,
and goats that browsed sparse tufts
of browning grasses waiting for the rain.

He would leave her the silver coil.