Nickole Brown
The Scat of It
The shit of it, the slick of it, the beetle’s tumbling joy,
the bear’s berry slush of it, the coyote’s ghost white
dry of it—undigested fur, nothing more, hot-pressed into a
turd—that nothing-wasted prayer. The shame
of it, even the dog shy, peering from behind a bush,
spine curved into the not-in-my-yard-sign; the teasing too,
me laughing about the anal express, the poor cat hissing
at the vet’s gloved hand. The dump and log
slop of it, a sad jaundiced yellow or something rich, a deposit
of iron, green nearly black, the color of a forest
never once cut, miraculously untouched.
Then too there’s the zoo—regular factories
of it: the chimp’s sling of it against his bars, and not too far
from him, swaying ceaselessly from side to side—the elephant—
how hers is shoveled up, scraped from the concrete floor
then hosed down, the rest of the heft hauled away. Down the road
it’s sweet meat for the pumpkin patch and hungry rows
of corn. And further on, in the dark of the barn, the halo of it
glows white around a chicken’s diddle warming next to her eggs.
The hen broods in, pays no mind to the much more tidy loo
kept by those few lucky pigs allowed to stand
and walk away from their bed to defecate outside, so different
from the lift-your-tail-and-go-where-you-stand kind—
that of the goat and sheep and rabbit—each pellet perfectly round,
a pile of dinky moons eclipsed, a mess of shining beads, a black rosary
undone, the prey animal take on it—look both ways and shit
quick, no dallying around.
The rice-sized mouse of it in the kitchen drawer, even smaller
is that of the roach, the cabinet scrubbed raw because mama says
such leavings are degrading, meant for the dirty and poor. In the water,
an ocean frolics with it, the seahorse trails it from a hole close to where
his babies burst from his chest—watch it frolic like a yellow streamer
before it breaks loose and floats. And up the river
the salmon rid themselves of what’s left of it, and with their load
lightened, eat no more. The satisfaction of it—the full-belly, the I-did-my-job-
now-let-go, as in what the earth has given my cells have loved
to death and now give back what’s left, a cramp of thank you,
here is my offering, a stench maybe for us but for everything else
a bouquet of gratitude, a scattering that if you look close you can
track, at least until it’s finally buried again, whipping with
worms, churned in, folded back. There is no shame
in it, and if we are disgusted, we have not yet
learned—blessed is that from what we came, blessed
to what we return.
Nickole Brown received her MFA from the Vermont College, studied literature at Oxford University, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson. She worked at Sarabande Books for ten years. Her first collection, Sister, a novel-in-poems, was first published in 2007 by Red Hen Press and a new edition was reissued by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2018. Her second book, a biography-in-poems called Fanny Says, came out from BOA Editions in 2015 and won the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Poetry. The audio book of that collection came out in 2017. Her poems have, among other places, appeared in The New York Times, The Oxford American, Poetry International, Gulf Coast, and The Best American Poetry 2017. Currently, she is the Editor for the Marie Alexander Poetry Series and teaches periodically at a number of places, including the Sewanee School of Letters MFA Program, the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNCA, Poets House, and the Hindman Settlement School. She lives with her wife, poet Jessica Jacobs, in Asheville, North Carolina, where she volunteers at four different animal sanctuaries. She’s at work on a bestiary of sorts about these animals, but she doesn’t want it to consist of the kind of pastorals that always made her (and most of the working-class folks she knows) feel shut out of nature and the writing about it—she yearns for poems to speak in a queer, Southern-trash-talking kind of way about nature beautiful, damaged, dangerous, and in desperate need of saving. A chapbook of those poems called To Those Who Were Our First Gods recently won the 2018 Rattle Chapbook Prize and will be published in December.
Return to November 2018 Edition
The shit of it, the slick of it, the beetle’s tumbling joy,
the bear’s berry slush of it, the coyote’s ghost white
dry of it—undigested fur, nothing more, hot-pressed into a
turd—that nothing-wasted prayer. The shame
of it, even the dog shy, peering from behind a bush,
spine curved into the not-in-my-yard-sign; the teasing too,
me laughing about the anal express, the poor cat hissing
at the vet’s gloved hand. The dump and log
slop of it, a sad jaundiced yellow or something rich, a deposit
of iron, green nearly black, the color of a forest
never once cut, miraculously untouched.
Then too there’s the zoo—regular factories
of it: the chimp’s sling of it against his bars, and not too far
from him, swaying ceaselessly from side to side—the elephant—
how hers is shoveled up, scraped from the concrete floor
then hosed down, the rest of the heft hauled away. Down the road
it’s sweet meat for the pumpkin patch and hungry rows
of corn. And further on, in the dark of the barn, the halo of it
glows white around a chicken’s diddle warming next to her eggs.
The hen broods in, pays no mind to the much more tidy loo
kept by those few lucky pigs allowed to stand
and walk away from their bed to defecate outside, so different
from the lift-your-tail-and-go-where-you-stand kind—
that of the goat and sheep and rabbit—each pellet perfectly round,
a pile of dinky moons eclipsed, a mess of shining beads, a black rosary
undone, the prey animal take on it—look both ways and shit
quick, no dallying around.
The rice-sized mouse of it in the kitchen drawer, even smaller
is that of the roach, the cabinet scrubbed raw because mama says
such leavings are degrading, meant for the dirty and poor. In the water,
an ocean frolics with it, the seahorse trails it from a hole close to where
his babies burst from his chest—watch it frolic like a yellow streamer
before it breaks loose and floats. And up the river
the salmon rid themselves of what’s left of it, and with their load
lightened, eat no more. The satisfaction of it—the full-belly, the I-did-my-job-
now-let-go, as in what the earth has given my cells have loved
to death and now give back what’s left, a cramp of thank you,
here is my offering, a stench maybe for us but for everything else
a bouquet of gratitude, a scattering that if you look close you can
track, at least until it’s finally buried again, whipping with
worms, churned in, folded back. There is no shame
in it, and if we are disgusted, we have not yet
learned—blessed is that from what we came, blessed
to what we return.
Nickole Brown received her MFA from the Vermont College, studied literature at Oxford University, and was the editorial assistant for the late Hunter S. Thompson. She worked at Sarabande Books for ten years. Her first collection, Sister, a novel-in-poems, was first published in 2007 by Red Hen Press and a new edition was reissued by Sibling Rivalry Press in 2018. Her second book, a biography-in-poems called Fanny Says, came out from BOA Editions in 2015 and won the Weatherford Award for Appalachian Poetry. The audio book of that collection came out in 2017. Her poems have, among other places, appeared in The New York Times, The Oxford American, Poetry International, Gulf Coast, and The Best American Poetry 2017. Currently, she is the Editor for the Marie Alexander Poetry Series and teaches periodically at a number of places, including the Sewanee School of Letters MFA Program, the Great Smokies Writing Program at UNCA, Poets House, and the Hindman Settlement School. She lives with her wife, poet Jessica Jacobs, in Asheville, North Carolina, where she volunteers at four different animal sanctuaries. She’s at work on a bestiary of sorts about these animals, but she doesn’t want it to consist of the kind of pastorals that always made her (and most of the working-class folks she knows) feel shut out of nature and the writing about it—she yearns for poems to speak in a queer, Southern-trash-talking kind of way about nature beautiful, damaged, dangerous, and in desperate need of saving. A chapbook of those poems called To Those Who Were Our First Gods recently won the 2018 Rattle Chapbook Prize and will be published in December.
Return to November 2018 Edition