throw me that snake i need to pray

my father was a snake
handler, so was my mother
and my sister, lucy jane.
it goes back even farther
than that, both sets of
grandparents loved to jump
around during worship
services yipping
and yapping with a couple
of copper heads in each
hand and a boa constrictor
around their necks.
they'd dance around like
their pants were on fire.
sometimes with
a rattler in one hand
and a bible in the other.
they'd point at passages
in the bible
that suggested such behavior
was reasonable.
they're all dead now
on account of being bitten
by poisonous snakes. so
i'm thinking that maybe,
just maybe there may have
been some small print or
a passage or two left out
of the Bible when those
verses were put in, like,
do not try this at home
with real live snakes,
or perhaps words such as
'poisonous snakes'
was just a metaphorical
reference to car salesmen.