Cherrylog Road

“The Sheep Child” by James Dickey (1967)

This may be one of the strangest poems ever written. Like “Cherrylog Road,” it references sexual desire in boys. But in this poem, the topic is bestiality. The boys are farm boys who avoid coupling with animals like sheep not because they have no desire to do so but because of a story they have heard of a creature, a sheep-child, who is preserved in formaldehyde in a museum in Atlanta. The creature, the offspring of a human and a sheep, is the narrator of much of the poem. It lived only very briefly, but in one “blazing moment” it saw from both a human and an animal point of view: “The great grassy world from both sides.”

“Adultery” by James Dickey (1967)

If the young couple in “Cherrylog Road” enjoy an uncomplicated—if risky—sexual relationship, this is certainly not true of the couple in “Adultery.” A man and a woman meet in a motel room. They know nothing can come of their affair, and there seems to be little joy in the sex (the male speaker refers to his “grim techniques”). They also feel guilty, but they are unwilling to end their relationship because, in some way, their adulterous affair has a hold on them. There is, in spite of everything, a thrill in it: “Guilt is magical.”

“The Enclosure” by James Dickey (1960)

The poem is about the power of sexuality. It is set during World War II, at a U.S. air base in the Pacific, where men and women are separated. The women in their segregated quarters are compared to prisoners, and they long to be liberated by the airmen who fly above them. The airmen too are trapped and enclosed in their planes. Thus, the sexes are unnaturally kept apart. One particular airman has lustful thoughts about the women, but the conditions of war do not permit an outlet for it. Later, after the war, he satisfies his pent-up desire with a Japanese woman. The final lines, “fall / On the enemy’s women / With intact and incredible love” is ambiguous about whether this was in fact a predatory assault.