Frenzy

Mr. Africa Poetry Lounge!

Here is the little earthworm eater,
she-kiwi.

She's in her frenzy of lust.
There she goes in her flightless

night journey, in mating season,
warm in her fur-feathers

poking her long bill, beaker,
with nostrils at the tip

sniffing and drilling
scratching and uprooting

with her powerful feet
pausing, maybe, to let

herself be mounted
furiously and briefly

by a he-kiwi whose
odor is to her liking.

Then there she goes again -
through the underbrush

(followed by her
faithful seducer)

back to her querencia
to burrow down

and wait and sometime
later she stands up

suddenly, and hatches
a big egg

nearly half the size
of her little body.

Finished, she steps away
and the father-to-be

steps in and sits
on the egg

warming it,
sits and sits warmly,

for three months
while she-kiwi, lustful still,

goes out looking
to get laid again

1994

Written by Clarence Major

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