When I noticed the blacksnake I knew
_        _what had happened to the new rabbits. I didn’t
wonder any more about whether they’d find a home

under the pine trees or under the pink magnolia
_        _where I first saw them, one
still in its nest near the flower pot, one at the door

in Florida, where I came late to a landscape
_        _of palms and flowers, where I don’t know many things—
the pelican, for example, or the armadillo

who dug up my pretty garden, or the sandhill crane
_        _with his pert, red cap on his forehead, his willow legs,
who saw himself in my window and danced and danced,

or the alligator who wandered over the highway
_        _from the pond to the swimming pool and had to be hoisted
out and carried away. But the newborn rabbits—

no, they were not so lucky. They didn’t live
_        _for forty years like the crane does. They saw only
grass and a few flowers, maybe the sky

and a black vine moving quickly, a dark mouth.
_        _And now, there he was, the blacksnake, sunning himself,
looking contented, I thought, and a little drowsy

after his morning meal. Well, after all,
_        _he was here long before I was, so I didn’t lift
the shovel and plunge it down on his shimmering body

which has left me its skins, sheer as the skins of onions,
_        _and kept the mice from my cupboards. I told myself
how he didn’t know any different, and off he went

back to the saw palmetto where he disappeared
_        _to sleep as long as he wanted, hardly disturbing
the path as he swept across it, letting the lawn

close gently behind him, leaving the finches singing,
_        _the flowers shining, leaving the morning mended
as if nothing had altered, nothing was gone.