Singh makes the reader wait for the word "snake." The poem begins with a creature that has no name, only a pronoun, "it," and two verbs of patience: "Hiding or waiting." By the time the noun arrives, tucked into the third line after a comma, the menace is already in place. We have felt the threat before we can label it, and that delay is the poem's first trick.
On the surface, the poem describes a snake that stays hidden or still and then suddenly lifts its head. The fourth line bends that picture. "A snake / glitters in the eyes": whose eyes? The poem never says. It does not put the snake in grass or on a path. It puts the snake in a gaze. Judging by that image, the snake seems to stand for hidden hostility in a person, a malice that stays quiet and picks its moment. The poem never says so outright, and the grammar leaves the suggestion for the reader to find. The central idea is that danger is most unsettling when it is patient and disguised, and shows itself only when it chooses.
The form supports this. The poem is a single unrhymed stanza of six lines with almost no punctuation: one comma, one colon, and no full stop at the end. Counting syllables, the lines run five, seven, five, five, seven, five. The two longer lines, "it raises its head when least" and "looks for the moment to slip," are the ones about movement and intent, while the shorter lines sit still around them. The effect is of a body coiling and releasing. The enjambment is well judged. The line breaks after "least," leaving the word hanging, and "expected" arrives at the start of the next line. The reader is caught slightly off guard by the layout itself, a small ambush that acts out what the sentence describes.
The sound is quietly snakelike. Hissing consonants run under the whole poem: "raises its," "least," "expected," "snake," "glitters," "eyes," "slip." The short, slim "i" of "its," "glitters" and "slip" keeps the pace quick and light. The final word, "fangs," begins with a sharp breath and ends on a hiss, so the poem closes on its most threatening sound.
Two word choices matter most. "Glitters" is a surprising verb for something dangerous. It suggests brightness and allure, something jewel-like, but also a hard, cold flash, the glint just before a strike. The danger here is attractive, or at least watchful and alive. The second word is "slip," which carries two senses. A snake slips through grass, but a person can also slip, let the mask drop, make the mistake that gives them away. After the colon, the subject of "looks for the moment" becomes unclear. Is it the snake, or the person with the snake in their eyes? The blur seems deliberate, since the two have merged into one figure. Then there is "reveal." The poet could have written "show" or "bare," but "reveal" implies the fangs were there all along, covered. The poem describes an unmasking, not a transformation.
There is also a small paradox in "when least expected." The poem tells us the attack will be a surprise, yet the poem itself is an act of expecting. Its attitude is wary, almost like advice: be careful of what is quiet and smiling. The missing full stop adds to this. The poem stops at "fangs," with the teeth revealed but not yet used, so the threat is left hanging and unresolved.
What makes the poem significant is how much it does with so little. In six short lines it takes an old and familiar symbol and renews it through syntax. It never says "he is like a snake," and never names a victim, a setting or a villain. Because nothing is specified, any reader can supply their own person to fear or distrust. It also shows students something useful about poetry: a metaphor works best when the reader is allowed to discover it, and the unsettling feeling in "Snake" comes from that discovery.