Genesis According to Snake
Holly Woodward
Snake asked God why he made the earth
so fragile it broke with a kiss.
God answered, “Long before my birth,
I have been wanting to lose this.
The world in pieces makes me feel
as I walk over its burnt shards,
like your bite feels on Adam’s heel
as he stumbles, lost—a spur onwards.”
“But heaven and earth once fit in your hand—
isn’t that how the two should stay?”
God said, “I want a world of sand
and time so it can fall away.”
Holly Woodward is a writer and artist. She served as writer in residence at St. Albans, Washington National Cathedral, and was a fellow for four years at CUNY Graduate Center’s Writers’ Institute. Woodward enjoyed a year as a doctoral fellow at Moscow University. She also studied at Leningrad University and has an MFA from Columbia. Her poetry and fiction have won prizes from Story Magazine, the 92nd Street Y, and New Letters, among other honors.