By: Sydnie Stern

We are serpents on a scepter
One follows the other
Like a cat chasing a minnow
along a long river
your scales are damp like you came from water
I’m missing an eye, I filled the chasm with Earth
only you know this about me
I’d empty it for your kiss
Let it fill with air,
half-blinding myself.
When we left the nest
the colony
You altered me forever
Now I’m honey-blooded, skin smooth as the
sanded planes of Egypt
Fangs coated in pearl.
You look fine in the light
You make the light look fine
the light is fine on you
Even I can aver this,
with my disfigured sight
Look! My green prince
We are the scepter.
the old, archaic thing falls to the floor
ignites in blue and silver flames
I can’t see it anymore,
it disappears
Like a magician
I think I followed you here

###

Sydnie Stern is a third-year English student at St. John’s University. Her journalistic articles are featured in the University’s independent publication, The Torch. She held an internship position with Quail Bell Magazine founder Christine Stoddard. Stern is credited as a literary editor in Lunar Phoenix and Not Joan Didion’s El Salvador. Her creative fiction stories have been published in Otolith and Quail Bell Magazine.