Witness

A fat snake
swiveled down
a branch
into the river
and I wondered,
what if I had
missed that?
I said to a
girl, “They’re
usually not
that big,”
sure she had
seen it flop,
but she said
“Thank God
I did not.
I would have
screamed
bloody murder!”
I walked on
smiling, tracing
the thing’s
path, its
inevitable
disappearance.

Sandra Marchetti is the author of two full-length collections of poetry, Aisle 228 from Stephen F. Austin State University Press (2023) and Confluence from Sundress Publications (2015). She is also the author of four chapbooks of poetry and lyric essays. Sandra’s poetry and essays appear widely in Blackbird, Ecotone, Southwest Review, Mid-American Review, Fansided and elsewhere.