Two Poems by Marilyn Gunn

Spring Cockerel

There is no containing the cockerel
with his pennants of shot taffeta;
he is a free flag taken any way the wind blows
and it goes all ways this April;

comb fat as blisters
blood-roe wattle clusters
and that tiny bright eye, a wet pebble,
winking as he backs off,
Lord of the rutted mud, leaving the whickering
horse-shed with its pails of grain
to strut his proud retreat: a fat lady
braced on purposeful legs,
her packed grocery-bagged body
hoisted beneath outheld wings;

all feather glitter
all April dazzle
haughty to the cover of the thorn
where, watchful for the signal of our turned backs
he’ll return.



Slug Eggs

Like the first earlies
white from black peat –
a fine crop.

Sun glitters the perfect ovals
between my fingers,
coming out clean as a whistle,
one only puckering from burst skin.

Little amber life-jelly
even in such heat, burned through
to the core, it holds firm.

On what night did she haul up the sack,
her thick jaffa keel
rubbering in under wet plastic
to loose this stash: gelatinous pearls
laid in a wash of earth?