Even snakes tremble in this land of trembling earth where cloaked in the Okefenokee a man stands on an alligator's back and prays it is a dream. His or another's. He knows, a foot lifts off — a heel strays just a bit and the stupefied is supper. The alligator doesn't move a breath, and the man wonders if he's sleeping. It doesn't matter; the hand's been dealt; an alligator's eyelids are windows, and the man wears an alligator belt. Frogs' throated dirge, the whir and thrum of insects quarrel in the man's ears, beat his drums until he's dizzy. It's curious, his thoughts don't run to a wife, grandbabies, what's left undone. Instead he thinks of alligators that climb ladders then swoosh belly down a slide, one after another, glide into a pool at a roadside reptile playground. Eyes devoid of joy, despite the frolic. Like exotic dancers, the man remembers. It's best to ignore their gaze, sluggish and bored. Reprinted with permission from The Connecticut Review, Fall 2003, XXV: 2 Copyright © 2003 by Teri Youmans Grimm

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