Poetry

SPRING 2026

Rattlesnake Ghazal

by SARAH ANN WOODBURY

Cheatgrass lullabies rasp the stream in tick-brown tongues.
You and I slide desert refrains with diamonds on our tongues.

Your paper tub of pearls is silent on the redrock. You brush
my backpack with a glitter of scales, flick flowering tongue.

Long jaw could crack me worthless, a cool brown whip.
And yet, you wouldn’t take my sad meat to sour your tongue.

You should know that I once slid the body of your cousin
open, tiny heart like a ruby in my hands. The coiled blue tongue.

You should know that they pickle you for science, sidewinders
especially: bottles of tiny gold rattles, brine-drowned tongues.

Hate me, but I see why they do it: pocket the only shining thing
in the desert. We dream a creek between droughts of tongues.

Please, God, speak to me—Sarah. I’m in love with your scent. The
taste of your eyes like pennies, sweet clay pressed toward a sound
from your tongue.

>

sarah ann woodbury

sarah ann woodbury spends her time nestled against the Bear River Mountains and upstream of Great Salt Lake. There, she writes, studies eco-sociology, and performs and organizes for multispecies justice in the Intermountain West. Her recent work can be found in The American Journal of Poetry, CALYX Press, and Sugar House Review. She also has a chapter forthcoming in The Oxford Handbook of Multispecies Justice and poetry forthcoming in the anthology A Literary Field Guide to the Rocky Mountains. She serves on the founding Board of Directors for Bichu-Nanewe, a Native-led nonprofit that uplifts Indigenous sovereignty and ecological knowledge. She is also a Founding and Executive Board Member for Los Cedros Fund, a group protecting Los Cedros (The Cedars), a misted Ecuadorian cloud forest bursting with biodiversity. sarah currently works as an eco-sociology PhD student and nature writer-in-residence, living deep in the mountain wilderness of the American West.

Social Media Handle: @mycelium.church.