Local God
There stands a man in Round Rock
Can grasp the rattlers behind the head
And snap them like a whip
Cracking their coiling bodies.
He is the God of these hissing snakes;
Milks the venom out of their mouths
And wraps them round his arms like bracelets.
He is our chief scientist: savage and delicate.
--William Burford (1927 -- 2004)
