Unfathered (hence tailless)

but with the ruby genes

of a gorgon mother

somehow

no matter which way it slithers

the only direction it can move

is forward—

even in reverse.

You wouldn't think

bicephalization would work—

but it does.

At least until each head

decides, like some inbred prince,

it can strike

the truer course.

The result

is less palindrome

than tug o' war—

a struggle between mirror-

image brothers

along a border

that is both imaginary

and disputed,

but which, though

an infinity of sand

drain through

the vast hourglass

of the desert,

no Solomon

or Gordius is ever

likely to cleave.