Two Poems by Tina Posner

Snake Jerry

My father says, There’s a snake in the house.
He calls the snake Jerry, also his name.

If you want to catch a poisonous snake, 
he says, you just kiss it right on the mouth.

I tell him there is no snake in the house. 
He laughs and says, The snake is Bad Jerry. 

Do you know someone who’ll come kill the snake? 
No? I’ll call that show, the one with the zoo!

Now, leaping to the old neighborhood pool, 
Remember your mother’s face when you dove

off the high board? You know, he says smiling, 
If I was a lizard, she’d be in love. 

I get his joke though it comes out sizzy. 
He says, Tonight, let’s go out for burgers.

I remind him again that everything’s closed. 
Another fact that has slithered away.

After the pool you’d grill us burgers, then 
go to your night job. He tells me That was 

Good Jerry, stroking his stubbly head. 
The sun feels nice. Who will come kiss the snake?

The Diver

I am shrinking inside
my father’s mind.
I have become a story—

the girl who dove
from the high board
frightening her mother. 

It is strange to be reduced
to a trivial episode 
from decades ago. 

But, it’s not the worst 
moment his mind 
could have chosen. 

When I was a teen,
he lifted me off a neighbor’s lawn.
I was passed out drunk

missing a shoe in the rain. 
I didn’t recognize him,
punched him in the face. 

I am grateful that’s not
the memory that sticks. 
Now the diver is shrinking

becoming a gesture—hands
clasped and raised overhead
like a monk in prayer.