Nobody talks about saving Naja ashei,
                     big-headed Sub-Saharan hussy
plops her eggs 
     on the local vegetation; 
                       their rot is her gain.
She spits for several hours
                       contracting muscles around her
                                       grooved fang.
Enough snot to kill fifteen men,
                               she sprays savagely;
                 her love is necrotizing.

Nobody turns away from Naja ashei,
                    her pale slender belly swivels
       on the pole of a stranger’s tree. 
                         She’s an arboreal acrobat,
                                    never dry,
                    her fine rain burns freely
     spreading legions
           faster than daybreak;
her show,
         all vertigo,
              straight jets to wide eyes,
                                        pulsing paralysis, 
                      before she graciously
        lets her victim die.

No one is nastier than Naja ashei.
                           Forceful, fierce, plucky,
            she rears up undisturbed 
to take a bite,
           if not a sucky.
                 Deadly damage in her aim
                              she disfigures the damned
          as they scream her name. 
A dark fate, 
        it’s always too late;
                  her poison spreads 
                among unweeded garden beds,  
         and while the tourniquet
    drains the veins,
be prepared to amputate. 

© 2022 | K.Hartless