Why I Am Not Afraid of King Cobras

Kerala, India

Forests equal fairies for a girl of eight.
What I did not equate was this was jungle,
just off the edge of coconut groves
and rubber trees, land where even my father

never ventured alone as a boy. But this
was vacation, time off from spelling tests
and fractions. All of a sudden I had grandparents
to buy me pieces of pink candy, and glass bangles

that clinked with each swing of arm. After dinner, I loved
to gouge the rubber trees with a stick, watch the plastic
ooze from each gash, roll the warm sap into a ball—
each bounce so high, I’d lose them in the last flicks

of sun. I had wandered further that day, deeper
in the groves where cinnamon and sweetleaf grew like weeds.
When I reached for a new stick, I saw him there, standing
in what I learned later is the Imperial pose—eye level,

his teeny tongue tasting the air for what I smelled of:
candy and glass. The ribs of his neck spread wide
as my father’s hand, then smoothed down, and I laughed—
he was suddenly small and naked, like he’d lost

his hat. We stood there for some time before I turned around
and went back inside to tell no one that just minutes before,
a girl and snake made their introductions—the birds overhead
holding their breath, the pierced trees bubbling at their bark.