Drawing by Anne Marshall Runyon 



c; V 



Rose Bay, 

 on a warm 

 September night 



Along the shore, j uncus and cordgrass bristle 

 under the electric hum of insects. 



John Miller crawls out of a tent he's pitched 

 on a stretch of high ground, stands, and glances 

 down to watch a pink pygmy rattlesnake slide 

 over the arch of his foot. Sometimes, a pygmy 

 will forget to strike. This is one such time. 



Miller seizes the rattler, drops it into a box 

 for the herpetologists back at school. It tries to 



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