The Skunk by Seamus Heaney

Simile - Comparing the skunk’s tail to the chausuble of a priest.

“Up, black, striped and damasked like the chausable At a funeral Mass”

Emphasis on the skunk’s tail.

“The skunk’s tail Paraded the skunk.”

Similar to how Heaney would sleep in bed with his wife every night, he sees the skunk every night.

“Night after night I expected her like a visitor.”

Sensuous imagery - Hearing and sight. Sets the scene, also an allusion to the experience being quite sensual and even erotic for Heaney.

“The refrigerator whinnied into silence, My desk light softened beyond the verandah, Small oranges loomed in the orange tree. I began to be tense as a voyeur.”

Begins writing love letters to his wife like at the start of their marriage.

“After eleven years I was composing Love-letters again”

Simile - He has to, unusually, say the word wife. It only aged with the time that he didn’t say it.

“broaching the word ‘wife’ Like a stored cask”

Everywhere in California reminds him of his wife.

“as if its slender vowel Had mutated into the night earth and air Of California.”

The “useless” small of eucalyptus reminds him of his wife. It’s “beautiful”, but it’s not his wife.

“The beautiful, useless Tang of eucalyptus spelt your absence.”

Simile - comparing the refreshing feeling of smelling his wife off of a cold pillow to the aftertaste of a mouthful of wine.

“The aftermath of a mouthful of wine Was like inhaling you off a cold pillow.”

Oxymorons - like his wife, the skunk is both ordinary and magical.

“And there she was, the intent and glamorous, Ordinary, mysterious skunk, Mythologised, demythologised”

The skunk is so close, yet so far, like his wife.

“Snuffling the boards five feet beyond me.”

A shift into the present. Heaney has been thinking back this whole time, like a flashback sequence. The flashback was triggered by his wife’s undressing. Also a soft sensuous sibilance.

“It all came back to me last night, stirred By the sootfall of your thinigs at bedtime”

This line is a direct callback to the first lines of the poem, describing the skunk’s tail and how it “paraded the skunk”. Also alludes to intimacy between Heaney and his wife.

“Your head-down, tail-up hunt in a bottom drawer For the black plunge-line nightdress.”

Theme

Love, marriage, intimacy, memories.