Ethel

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Ethel

Ethel

Bitten by the Lantern Fly

by
Frances Cannon
Franky (Frances) Cannon is a writer, editor, educator, and artist based in Edinburgh, Scotland and Burlington, Vermont. She is the Reviews Editor for *Poetry Wales,* an editorial reader for *The Kenyon Review,* and an affiliated scholar at Kenyon College, where she recently completed the Mellon Science and Nature Writing Fellowship. She has an MFA in creative writing from Iowa and a BA from the University of Vermont. She is the author and illustrator of several books: *Walter Benjamin Reimagined* (MIT Press), *Fling Diction* (Green Writers Press), *Willow and the Storm* (Green Writers), *Tropicalia* (Vagabond), *The Highs and Lows of Shapeshift Ma and Big-Little Frank* (Gold Wake), *Sagittaria* (Bottlecap), *Predator/Play* (Ethel), *Uranian Fruit* (Honeybee), and *Grotto,* (above/ground). She also has a chapbook forthcoming with Ethel: *Bitten by the Lantern Fly*; and a book forthcoming with Valiz: *Queer Flora, Fauna, Funga* and a novel forthcoming with Set Margins' Press: *Vernal Thaw*.
Website: frankyfrancescannon.com
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from Bitten by the Lantern Fly

Toothless

Your daughter finds a baby snake in a rotten log. While you hunt for beetles in the log’s remains, she plucks the snake out of the spongy wood, no fear in her fingers. The snake appears unresponsive—perhaps it’s cold, hibernating in the shadows of the early morning. As the snake begins to thaw in the sun, and wake to its peril, it stares us all in the face, in turns: who is this, and this, and this, what are these fingers clutching my belly, is this the moment of my death? Finally, it opens and closes its jaw to bite, or threaten to bite, and this is when your daughter drops the poor thing in the grass. It coils and bites, unfurls and bites, lunges and bites, but the actions of its jaw are futile; the snake is too young for teeth. I have felt this way all week, a toothless snake: between negotiating the meager pay and benefits of three part-time jobs, anxious trips to the grocery store mid-pandemic, and witnessing the horror of the news unfold daily—snapping my jaw away in defense of attack, to no avail—those more powerful have already snatched me up at my tender middle, dropped me, and I lay half-hidden, biting at air.