by Janet Ruth
My neighbor phones—Please come over! It needs your help. I feel bad but I’m afraid to touch it.
Squatting by the fig bush wrapped with netting to keep birds off—the snake is impossibly tangled. She was probably slithering through on her way somewhere else—with mice—like our compost bin or the garage. I have no idea if it’s male or female, but it feels wrong using “it,” so I choose to call the snake “her.”
She is a gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer), welcome controller of local rodent populations, this beauty adorned with chestnut patches on a cream background. I flash on previous encounters:
- The other time I picked one up, goaded by the curiosity of kids. I knew it was a dumb move—gopher snakes aren’t venomous but can give a nasty bite when frightened. When they asked if I could pick it up, my wish for admiration outweighed my better judgement.
- Recognizing the “there’s a snake here” fluttering of outraged curve-billed thrashers, making feints at something outside the gate. The snake was looped over low branches in a sumac, waiting for the thrashers (and me) to go away.
- Having seen swerving cars that could be nothing but purposeful and flattened remains, all the times I stopped in the middle of a road, got out of the car, and stopped traffic so the snake could cross.
- The one who took exception to my “herding attempts”—coiled up, raised head, hissed and shook a skinny tail, hoping I wouldn’t notice the lack of rattles.
In any event, when this gopher snake slid through the netting, she must have sensed danger as the thicker part of her body met the grasp of nylon. She has twisted and turned, so tightly knotted that the strands cut into her body. Examining bulges and constrictions, I worry she has been irrevocably damaged.
Kneeling beside her, armed only with the scissors on my Swiss army knife, I must seem menacing. She hisses and tries to look fierce. I croon and wonder exactly what a snake can hear; wonder how anyone could call a snake ugly and slimy—she is smooth, dry and lithe.
Carefully I grasp just behind her head. Immediately, the part of her ropelike body that is not entangled wraps around my arm. It feels like a hug—like a help me. I separate each nylon strand, slide the tiny blade between it and the snake’s smooth scales and snip. Try to remember to breathe. One strand at a time I free her body, smooth her scales back into place, relieved to see no open wounds. Finally, the last almost-hidden thread, and I hold the muscular drape of her in two hands. Flicker of black tongue—her dark eyes hold no emotion, and yet my heart is pounding.
I carry her to the back yard, gently lay her in the shade beneath a sand sage. With only a moment’s hesitation and not a backward glance, she slides away.
Janet Ruth is a New Mexico ornithologist and poet. Her writing focuses on connections to the natural world. Her book Feathered Dreams was a 2018 NM/AZ Book Awards finalist. Learn more at redstartsandravens.com/janets-poetry.