Poem
Judith Beveridge
The Domesticity of Giraffes
The Domesticity of Giraffes
The Domesticity of Giraffes
She languorously swings her tonguelike a black leather strap as she chews
and endlessly licks the wire for salt
blown in from the harbour.
Bruised-apple ed she ruminates
towards the tall buildings
she mistakes for a herd:
her gaze has the loneliness of smoke.
I think of her graceful on her plain—
one long-legged mile after another.
I see her head framed in a leafy bonnet
or balloon-bobbing in trees.
Her hide’s a paved garden of orange
against wild bush. In the distance, running
she could be a big slim bird just before flight.
Here, a wire-cripple—
legs stark as telegraph poles
miles from anywhere.
She circles the pen, licks wire,
mimics a gum-chewing audience
in the stained underwear of her hide.
This shy Miss Marigold rolls out her tongue
like the neck of a dying bird.
I offer her the fresh salt of my hand
and her tongue rolls over it
in sensual agony, as it must
over the wire, hour after bitter hour.
Now, the bull indolently
lets down his penis like a pink gladiolus
drenching the concrete.
She thrusts her tongue under his rich stream
to get moisture for her thousandth chew.
© 1987, Judith Beveridge
From: The Domesticity of Giraffes
Publisher: Wentworth Falls, Black Lightning Press
From: The Domesticity of Giraffes
Publisher: Wentworth Falls, Black Lightning Press
Poems
Poems of Judith Beveridge
Close
The Domesticity of Giraffes
She languorously swings her tonguelike a black leather strap as she chews
and endlessly licks the wire for salt
blown in from the harbour.
Bruised-apple ed she ruminates
towards the tall buildings
she mistakes for a herd:
her gaze has the loneliness of smoke.
I think of her graceful on her plain—
one long-legged mile after another.
I see her head framed in a leafy bonnet
or balloon-bobbing in trees.
Her hide’s a paved garden of orange
against wild bush. In the distance, running
she could be a big slim bird just before flight.
Here, a wire-cripple—
legs stark as telegraph poles
miles from anywhere.
She circles the pen, licks wire,
mimics a gum-chewing audience
in the stained underwear of her hide.
This shy Miss Marigold rolls out her tongue
like the neck of a dying bird.
I offer her the fresh salt of my hand
and her tongue rolls over it
in sensual agony, as it must
over the wire, hour after bitter hour.
Now, the bull indolently
lets down his penis like a pink gladiolus
drenching the concrete.
She thrusts her tongue under his rich stream
to get moisture for her thousandth chew.
From: The Domesticity of Giraffes
The Domesticity of Giraffes
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