Sonnet for a Tropical Snake

It took six whole children to hold the snake
aloft, its skin like a bean of August
swelled by buckets of squealing guinea pigs,
or whatever an anaconda might
need to keep six children outside itself
for the caress of a quick photograph,
a sentence that wriggles to criminal
with a little less context. The context:
the mall at March Break, where feeling is free
but a photo? Twenty bucks and beyond
a mother’s disposable thrills. So much
beyond her, begging for the fake danger
of four hundred ribs. The proof at the end.
Her kids a bit cold blooded, even then.