When Bay Cockburn was huntsman of the Loudoun West Hunt (VA), he would allow the author to bring the bitches home to whelp in a quiet place during the point-to-point season when he was busy racing. “It was so much fun,” says Wendell.
Beneath the cone of heat lamp light,
in the time it takes to break
a sack, wipe clear a face, and head-down shake
all wet away, I urge this not-yet-
breathing-thing: Come in,
speak of future days
when scent is keen and he will bay
Yes-fox-yes right-here-dog-fox yes-oh-yes
and press
to be inside that musk: all tongue and drive
to keep scent strong inside.
Beneath the cone of yellow light, I feel
watchers out there when I hear
shuffled straw, wind through oak boards,
the scrape of claws whose presence hovers as each life’s begun.
Still no motion in my hands. Overhead
a pigeon coos.
First pups swarm their pressed-pink faces
deep into their milk-suck quest. They have left
the water-breather world and chosen Yes.
Come in. Come in.
Stubborn thing, clinging to old
ways of gills and slithering. Come quiver in my hands.
His mouth opens once and oh yes
moves again. The earth makes room, shifts
to let him in
which is why the watchers watch and why
I whelp the bitches here:
that gasp and cry, that first sharp suck.
I wish each pup good foxhound luck,
nudge each mouth onto a teat,
offer water to the bitch then retreat
into the shadows of the stall
to wait another chance to touch it all.
Posted March 2, 2020
From a collection by the author being prepared for publication with the working title, Stride for Stride. Wendell Hawken earned her MFA in Poetry at Warren Wilson College in Swannanoa, North Carolina. Collections of her poems include, The Luck of Being, published by The Backwaters Press, Omaha (2008) and The Spinal Sequence by Finishing Line Press, Georgetown, Kentucky (2013). Individual poems have appeared in literary magazines including Narrative, Shenandoah, Southern Poetry Review, and Poet Lore as well as in Foxhunting Life.