The Cobra Eaters

Hanoi, 2022

When it’s cut from the body
with one chop,
in Hang Ha Noi restaurant,
the king cobra’s
severed head yawns.
In the death dream, the fangs come
out to bite, then hide
inside the sleeping jaws.
The headless body
leaps
high from the metal pan,
gets tangled
with the wiggling tail.
Minutes later, it’s skinned,
slit with kitchen
knife, dripping blood
into a plastic cup.

It’s still alive. In a way
we’re alive when we recuse
the body
to sleep, tuck
our fangs in
in a helpless yawn,
poison hid
in the nook of the heart.
The sleeping torsos jerk
at the thud of a chop,
thump the ground
with a fuming tail:
when we cobra eaters crawl
in the hollow
of the night
slowly serpentine
between dream and death.

(The poem was first published in Issue 15 of HeartWood Literary Magazine: http://www.heartwoodlitmag.com/the-cobra-eaters, and then in Outlook: https://www.outlookindia.com/culture-society/five-poems-about-people-across-the-world-weekender_story-328626)