Sunken Garden Poetry Festival

Skunk Cabbage


A rattle of winter-stiff grass in the bog
and in the sheep shed
a ewe, mother-mumbling deep in the throat
two lambs still orange with birth.

The ewe is busy licking the larger, butting her
toward a teat, paying no attention to the runt
in a corner, giving up.

It's all quite peaceful, this dying. Everyone
wants it. Already the ewe is digging a grave
as she licks and butts,
is scratching a trough in which to nudge what
didn't work out.

I rub the runt angrily. He has no right.
I work his legs, force his mouth against a teat,
knead his neck to start the swallowing,

and force the milk. Too fast. He chokes,
eyes bulged,
and from the nose, small bubbles, unbroken.
It's an act, I tell the legs to kick, the eyes
to look lively. They don't,
they mean it.

Digging a grave at the edge of the bog,
the muck in love with my shovel, sucking it in,
down I go. This death is all there is.

And from below,
from the roots of skunk cabbage
(that yellow-spotted purple thrust to come)
a sharp sour scent muscles up, says
Live God damn you, live.

Rennie McQuilkin
We All Fall Down
Swallow's Tale Press
©1987, Rennie McQuilken
Used with permission

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