This poem was published in The Avenue Journal, Issue X: Dogs
O! Possum
by Mary Beth O’Connor
It’s the season of slow mammals
awakening from the icy grip of depressed winter,
even the non-hibernators
who nonetheless hunker down in frozen places.
Just about everyone I know
speaks of it, emerging from their warm dens.
I see the way my well-fed dog
lunges toward beaver, muskrat, and especially
opossum who carry, always,
that extra unvoiced syllable and, perhaps,
some small orphans in the marsupial pouch,
which did not occur to us
when we came downstairs that morning
to find a perfect specimen
arranged so tenderly, on the sofa,
propped against a pillow.
Since retiring from teaching college, Mary Beth O’Connor has continued writing, painting, and printmaking. Her work (prose, poems, and art work) has appeared in The Avenue, Persimmon Tree, Minerva Rising, The Healing Muse, and other literary magazines, and in Food for Thought (illustrations), a book of poems by Joyce Holmes McAllister.
You can purchase The Avenue Journal Issue X: Dogs in paperback at Bookshop.org, or, if you prefer it in digital format, you can download the ebook in .epub format for pay-what-you-can (suggested donation $9) at ko-fi.