I told him stop but he never could. 
Said he’d learn me good. Show me 
  
ink and catfish, belt and hobnail; 
feed me fishbelly whiskey, cottonmouth 
  
gin. (Widow Douglas: pray for my sins.) 
Pap was dead once. I spoiled it: spilt  
  
the salt, burnt the spider. I heard the owl.    
I listened to the stray dog howl. So Pap  
  
came back riverhair and whippoorwills. 
He came hairball, cowhide, forty-rod. 
  
I asked him dead cats and marbles 
gave him candle stub case knives  
  
whistled up quicksilver loaf batwings. 
But all the snakes were already him.