On December 9, a baby pygmy hippo was born in the Metro Richmond Zoo. The daughter of parents Iris and Corwin, the yet-to-be-named calf weighed in at a healthy 16 pounds on her first neonatal exam, and has continued to show signs of healthy growth and development. She is the second pygmy hippo to have been born at the Zoo, which is the only place in Virginia that's home to these semiaquatic creatures. Native to West Africa, there are estimated to be fewer than 2500 of these endangered animals left in the wild. 

What to name her? Polls were created over the past weeks and opened to the public, which has now narrowed it down to two: Poppy or Hammie Mae. You can still vote (through January 4th); the final result will be announced January 6th! 

This poem was written as part of the Tupelo Press January 2025 30/30 project, where I and a small cohort are writing daily this month. You can read along with us as we go here!

In a name

Poppy: Latin name, papaveraceae. (happy-red paper-thin petal cups waving from the runways when I touched down in Rome at age 16.) Demeter was said to have created the flower to bring dreams,  and who wouldn’t want to forget her grief after the abduction of a daughter? A mother’s solace in the breeze-swayed reds, gentle Morpheus against the black of rape. Others cite Hypnos (sleep) and Thanatos (death) as wearing crowns of the bright blossom, the red on funeral wreaths ages ahead of Flanders Fields, ancient polītēs fully aware of its numbing siren call, long before dens of opium eaters gave the crimson its mystique. 

None of this to the point of the baby pygmy hippo born at the Richmond Metro Zoo December ninth. Spark of joy in the dying ashes of a year, capturing the heart of a public that searches for the next ember to fan, the next high to numb the headlines. Anonymity, from the Greek, “nameless,” without a password to her soul, as she swims and hops to the delight of the camera; the choice left to the people, narrowed down to two: after a flower, like her mother, Persephone come again? (fields of em in the sunshine between tarmacs) Or Hammie Mae, a play on southern Virginia ham, heavy and sweet but without the grace of a daughter born to face the world. 

I voted; have you?