Sexing the Alligator
A twenty-pound turkey takes longer to thaw than you'd think,
than I thought.
At the sink, stuffing ready, I'm elbow-deep
in carcass, grappling
with an inner handle, one end of the neck,
shank set in ice.
It makes the bird seem turned half inside-out,
like a casual sock.
I am contending with something I can't see.
The problem with alligators is even males
go in an armored modesty,
as interior and private as their mates.
So one naturalist
must grope inside, feeling for a penis
or an absence
while at the other end a partner holds
the jaws,
so weak to open, so strong to close.
My fingers freeze and burn. I'm running late.
I've already thrown away the tidy packet
holding the limp liver, the white-wrapped kidneys,
the small, tense nugget which is the heart.
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