Snake Dream

This is 1 poem from a series based on imaginings about Mary Magdalene.

carefully i watch
the curious lives lived
above my crawl space
and wonder if ever i
will walk upright

unnoticed i slither ‘neath
stones of stumbling
sting without hissing
leave something of me
rotting in hardening veins

when will the venom
be fully spent?
when will be my time
to crawl dreamily onto
a sun-drenched rock
and sleep in the whispering heat
as my old skin falls away?