On the drive to the reptile store, I contemplate motherhood —
My role in cojoined lives includes taking my son to purchase
frozen rats for his beloved diamond python, Glory, whose sheds

are celebrated with pride, whose skins, empty beige stockings,
are paraded through the house and draped around his bedroom.
Scaly keepsakes crumbling on carpets amongst the spill of straw-

coloured organic bedding that accumulates beneath her glassy
home. As well as lining it. The sour smell of her. The haunting
hollow — at her core. Of brilliant coils. When I voice distaste,

my son scoffs. Rolls his green-green eyes. Reminder — this job
falls within my jurisdiction after all. My girls giggle in the back.
Corroborate his case with detailed descriptions of rodents graded

by size — frozen mothers in one drawer, metal trays for pinkies
and larger progeny one bank over. Also, live mothers housed
for breeding — and feeding snakes. The kids accuse me of cold

cold bloodedness. I wait in the car while they peruse aisles for icy
rats that my son will defrost in the kitchen while I fry snitsels.
I evict him to the laundry — a bowl of warm water, tongs, peeled

plastic wrap, and the furred parcel that Glory, admittedly glorious,
swallows whole once a week after a violent snatch that belies her
stone-cold sleep. Then the ugly bulge. The distended version

as she digests. The kids watch. I’m otherwise occupied — a great
disappointment, I know. But us mothers are set up to fall down.
We tip. Teeter on gauzy brinks. Between repulsion and attraction.