Snakebelly Low

Snakebelly Low

Emma Galloway Stephens

I grew up snakebelly low.
Preacher passed me a viper
when I was ten years old,
its scales quicksilver
in my tender hands.

Snakebelly low meant closer to God.
We broke bread over possum stew,
communion over collards. We were
protesting protestants,
wise as serpents,

dumb as doves. Preacher told us
who to love. A viper bit my father—
he caught the fever. Mother wound
his purple hand in gauze,
gaze heavenbent.

I grew up. A viper bit me.
Preacher said I’d lost my faith,
backslidden, fallen from the way—
but I’d found it,
caught red-handed, climbing bloody-knuckled

from the copperhead pit
to the open mouth of God.

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Emma Galloway Stephens
Poet & Educator

Emma's work has appeared in Catfish Stew, The Windhover, The Nature of Things, and The Fallow House. She is an assistant professor of English and creative writing at a Christian liberal arts university in South Carolina. 

Photography by Jack Anstey