Truffle Hog
Maximilian Heinegg
I hear in Alba, where the musk grows beneath
the trees, that now the pricey Lagotto Romagnolo
forages in her place, no teeth for that treasure
the earth-sage could not be trusted with, nosing
a perfume Neruda might have meant when he wrote
el apretado aroma que ascendio de la terra
because once she caught the intimation
of white fruiting by the roots, the same reflexive scent
in her boar’s spit that compels her to stand,
she’d devour pounds worth thousands,
& what could the assistant to her divination say
to heel her twenty potent stones, lifting jewels
he & the miserly forest would have kept from her.
Maximilian Heinegg’s poems have appeared in Sweet Tree Review, The Cortland Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, December Magazine, Free State Review, and Crab Creek Review, among others. Additionally, he is a singer-songwriter and recording artist. He lives and teaches English in the public schools of Medford, MA.