Lent 15: On The Layout of a Ventricle

Ruth Padel’s The Soho Leopard is an interesting collection. I’ve written about it before – its four sections and it’s first poem which fits into none of them. Padel’s grandmother was Charles Darwin’s granddaughter, and I love how this family history infiltrates her poetry as can be seen in the poem below, from the third section of the book, “Sex, Scars and Alligators.”

     ON THE LAYOUT OF A VENTRICLE

     …related more to birds than lizards. For a start,
          They architect up their nests

     From plants, lay calcified eggs in them, go in
          As dinosaurs must have done

     For long-term parenting. Forget differing
          Molecular tissue of the skin:

     Both birds and alligators boast an elongate ear canal,
          a muscled gizzard.

     And in both, my friend, you find a total separation
          Of the ventricles of the heart.

See the intro/roundup.