“At the Small Animal Auction” by Greg Pape

240 Replies

Animal TimeEyes dark and shining with the light
of the distant sun, just as a glint
on the gin-clear water of a riffle
back up in the wilderness flashes that same
light, the light that makes everything grow
and the origins of which we probe and debate
but none deny, when I saw those eyes
shining beneath the brilliant red flesh combs
and imagined stroking the sleek black feathers
of those two hens, one held in each arm
of the girl wearing a glittering tiara,
blue sash that said Princess over her
white 4H shirt, big belt buckle, blue jeans
and boots, and the auctioneer said
I hear fifteen gimme gimme sixteen
Do I hear sixteen? I raised my hand
and he said sold, and they were mine,
so to speak, and I belonged to them.

–Greg Pape,
Animal Time (2011)
Accents Publishing

More from Greg Pape:

Greg Pape

Greg Pape is the author of nine books, including Border Crossings, Black Branches, Storm Pattern (University of Pittsburgh Press), Sunflower Facing the Sun, winner of the Edwin Ford Piper Prize (University of Iowa Press), and American Flamingo, winner of a Crab Orchard Open Competition Award (Southern Illinois University Press). His poems have been published widely in such magazines and literary reviews as The Atlantic, Iowa Review, The New Yorker, Northwest Review, and Poetry. He has received the Discovery/The Nation Award, two National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowships, the Pushcart Prize, the Richard Hugo Memorial Poetry Award, and his poems have been featured on NPR and read by Garrison Keillor on The Writers’ Almanac. He teaches at the University of Montana, and in the Brief-residency MFA program at Spalding University. Greg served as Poet Laureate of Montana from 2007 to 2009.

240 thoughts on ““At the Small Animal Auction” by Greg Pape”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *