A Poem by Alice Wickenden

type specimen

‘In biology, a type is a particular specimen of an organism to which the scientific name of that organism is formally attached.’ — Wikipedia

She picks a flower that has never been named
though her mother chewed its bitter stem
as a cure for heartbreak, cure for shame

which will never appear in a book. It looks maimed
like this, plucked, dried & isolated by them,
bearing uncertain weight – the label of a name –

it stands for its species now. It has been tamed,
transformed: the botanist’s proud diadem.
The jewel of progress. The loss of shame.

The plant’s the thing. Is your plant the same?
It has the power to acquit. Condemn.
Yes, it declares, that shares my name –

or maybe: no. But you weren’t to blame.
It differs slightly here – see the stem?
A different green... & there’s no shame

in that! And now it has been framed.
Desiccated gem.
The unpicked girl looks on unnamed:
alone & still, & still ashamed.

Alice Wickenden has just completed her PhD. She tries to live her life by Robert Hass's line: 'maybe you should write a poem about grace'. Her cat is called Cordelia; it's a test to see whether you think of Buffy, Brideshead Revisited, or King Lear. She has poems in Anthropocene, Cypress, perhappened and Banshee Lit, amongst others. Her chapbook, To Fall Fable, is out now with Variant Literature; a poetic memoir on Scouting, Thriftwood, is forthcoming with Broken Sleep Books in December, and a second chapbook, How to decode your orange-peel fortunes, is published by Nine Pens next year.