KEVIN MCFADDEN

Feet

Sticky, floundering, floppy, numerous:
once I helped birth a litter of puppies.
Every scrawny dog checked out—two eyes,
two ears, one tail—except the runt who came
with his paws on backward, pads up. Whining
every step, high-register misunderstandings.
The farmer, pious man, wouldn’t hear of this,
held him down in a tub til no bubbles.

But some of the new ideas do all right.
Now and then there’s a two-headed cow to pull out,
or a tongueless frog to dissect, each destined
for little: their share of the pain prepared them.
Always a chick with no beak who can’t break
the first layer. Always more loose talk among fish
about feet. Flukes are older than you
can imagine; the whale wasn’t one picked to make it.