Twas a day or maybe seven that she'd wandered through that place,
Though pernicious dreck and brambles hadn't yet reduced her pace,
While the plague of buzzing insects left their tracks upon her face,
She had hoped that her endeavor would return his warm embrace.
They had lived in Serpents' Gullet for about a half a year,
And had realized rather suddenly the place was awful queer,
For the folks at night were silent and the air was thick with fear,
When each month another family seemed to up and disappear.
Levi never was the type to sit and wait for storms to pass,
So one night he said to Hester he would wait at Bile Pass,
She implored him to be patient and come morning they'd leave fast,
But come morning all she'd found was Levi's boots and bloody grass.
The boughs around her heaved as a miasma blew about,
Winds of sulfur danced with sweat upon a floor of rotten trout,
Her heart clung to her gorge as she suppressed the urge to shout,
In the twilight of her lantern, two black eyes and serpent's snout.
"I'm the head of this estate and king of every leech and frog,
Sovereign ruler over every septic inch and rotten log,
Now I wonder what this lamb is doing groping through my bog,
Will the fly appease the spider?" hissed the savage Brackentrogg.
"Just a trifle, drop your rifle for there's no good it will do,
Tell yourself your bull's still breathing when you know it isn't true,
Had a feast of his fine offal and his fats went in my stew,
And now my dear I fear I plan to do the same to you."
Like a shadow meeting onyx it submerged beneath the pitch,
All about the putrid bog she heard it cackle like a witch,
So she perched within a mangrove til she felt the water twitch,
Clutched her iron like a fetish and assailed the son of a bitch.
With a motion, in a moment, all the fear had come and gone,
Rending teeth and thrashing coils met the steely little fawn,
What the Trogg had thought at first to be a meal he'd come upon,
Was instead a vengeful huntress who had proved the devil wrong.
