First, a short poem for your day:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published  Snake in a Glass Box  If there is something sadder  than a snake, wild and honest  in a clean glass box  defeated, who does not move any fraction of an inch  when the boy taps the glass, I’m not sure  what that is. Her length hugs all four colorless walls  mouth to tail, she is become simply a rectangle of muscle  trying to remember, once animal, now  the measure of a sturdy glass box — and there!  the waiting mouse in a small cage on the shelf, unaware.    Kenneth White    Abandoned Mine, Issue 12, June 2025

One afternoon several years ago, a close friend and I were conversing over poems and food at a patio table here in Albuquerque. A passerby, newly arrived in our desert city, overheard us and stopped. I think it was Robert Grant, but it might have been Jasen Christensen, informing us that the two friends were preparing to start a poetry journal, Abandoned Mine.

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Pleased with this kind of serendipity, I submitted poems and had work published in the second issue, May 2022. In the interim, I’ve browsed—and admired—the poetry at Abandoned Mine. The twelfth issue, June 2025, includes the short poem that opens this mini-essay.

Like other poets whose work appears in Abandoned Mine, Kenneth White writes with admirable clarity. The syntax here is simple and straightforward—but never clunky, never dull. I cite the opening sentence here, which moves rhythmically over the space of three couplets. The first comma wins me over, with the first of two unhurried pauses depicting a particular snake and earning the word sadder from the opening line. And then this: “she is become simply a rectangle of muscle / trying to remember.” I think of Rilke’s panther, reduced to the dimensions of a zoo enclosure—wildness caged.

This poem need not go farther. White might close with his snake, “once animal, now / the measure of a sturdy glass box”—as if permanently unmoving. But there is more to this glimpse of a pet snake’s life. There is—predatory surprise—“the waiting mouse in a small cage on the shelf, unaware.”

Five couplets, ten lines. Glass box, pet snake, tap on the glass, mouse to be swallowed—this microcosm is complete.

About the Author

Kenneth White earned his MA, Poetry, in the seventies but only started seeking publication in 2023. His poems have appeared in the Paterson Literary Review, Comstock Review, Pinyon, California Quarterly, The RavensPerch, Stone Canoe, Front Range Review, and Abandoned Mine. Now retired from a career in animal rescue, White lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Treat yourself to more poems at Abandoned Mine ⇒

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