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Show THE SNAKE IN THE REFRIGERATOR My father keeps a snake in the refrigerator looped and coiled among the lettuce leaves, a pearl black snake with honeycolored eyes that coldly stare across the bowl, the platter of yesterday's leftovers, ham and peas. The snake lives there (my father told me so) because that darkness closing on it stays it from all hot and not-approving faces that otherwise might open to loud Ohs; shades it from bright panes of everydays. What does it do, alone there, once I asked but all he answered was, it sleeps, it sleeps- and would not tell me more. My father keeps a silver noose nearby, not used; but then he talks to his black snake, he offers it raw eggs. Sometimes my father calls the.snake by a name I never quite can hear. It doesn't matters I do remember, once when I was little there were some loudmouth strangers boldly came into our house, and they were not invited: They drank my father's wine without his blessing, they would not go away. And so my father |