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.