Jenny Ward Angyal
Beauty & the Beast
Half awake, I glimpse the hummingbird feeder between the slats of the kitchen blinds. A long, dark object, bulging at the bottom, dangles from the feeder. On closer inspection, the thing morphs into a black rat snake, tail wound around the syrup jar, hanging head down and motionless. An engorged throat and a pair of wingtips sticking out of the corners of the mouth give the snake’s head the air of some monstrous chimera. I step out onto the deck for a closer look. Instantly, the snake uncoils, dropping into the flower bed like a ribbon of dark silk, and vanishes from sight.
the river
that has no name
flows
through wing & fang—
shapeshifting clouds
About the Author
Jenny Ward Angyal is the author of several collections of tanka, tanka sequences, tanka-prose, and haibun. Her books are available on Amazon. She currently serves as Global Moderator of Inkstone Poetry Forum.