The Rough-Skinned Newt By Penelope Scambly Schott

 Michael Mueller Flickr CC



The Rough-Skinned Newt     


Did it skitter away from the hissing sticks of our fire?
Did its tail tickle your wet ankle?

Was the flash of its underbelly the color of melon?
Did it disappear under the upside-down rowboat?
                                
Did I tangle my chilled fingers through yours?
Did the rowboat’s keel glitter with rain?
    
Would you wrap me up in your yellow slicker?
Would we follow the newt beneath the boat?

Would we lie there on moss as if it were sheepskin?
Would we speak of the newt as true believers

might converse about ghosts?
Would I put my lips to the stiff hairs on your neck?

I did.  I would.

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Penelope Scambly Schott, author of a novel and several books of poetry, was awarded four New Jersey arts fellowships before moving to Oregon, where her verse biography, A is for Anne: Mistress Hutchinson Disturbs the Commonwealth, received an Oregon Book Award for Poetry. Several of Penelope’s books and individual poems have won other prizes. Her individual poems have appeared in APR, Georgia Review, Nimrod, and elsewhere.