With early voting in full swing in Tennessee, things are hopping at the Putnam County election office. I work there as a registrar, checking photo IDs and processing paperwork before voters head to the machines.
My job also includes traveling to nursing homes and assisted living facilities to help residents vote an absentee ballot. One of the things I like best about this is chatting about the things they wear or bring with them when they come to our table to vote.
Ball caps and t-shirts indicating military service are common. Not surprisingly, we almost never meet veterans of World War II anymore. We seldom see veterans of the Korean conflict, but we do vote a lot of Vietnam veterans. Some of the non-military shirts we notice proclaim WORLD’S GREATEST GRANDMA (or GRANDPA). Voters tell us stories about bracelets or watches or rings they’re wearing. About lap robes a loved one knitted or crocheted. About intricately carved hiking sticks. About walkers or wheelchairs with amazing features.
Every now and then, a voter brings a book or magazine or piece of paper to show us. Earlier this month, one resident slid a yellowed newspaper clipping across the table to me. “Have you ever seen a picture of a two-headed calf?” he asked.
I shook my head and told him I had not. “But I know a poem about a two-headed calf,” I said. But because the line of people waiting to vote was long and because I didn’t know the poem by heart and–even if I did—I wasn’t certain it was appropriate for me to recite it at that time and in that place, I returned the photo to him and began his paperwork.
When I got home that afternoon, I found a copy of “The Two-headed Calf,” a poem I’ve always loved, and sat at my desk until I’d memorized it. Then I began researching two-headed calves.
I learned that they’re extremely rare, the odds being about one in 400 million live births. Polycephaly is the scientific term that describes the phenomenon. It’s caused by an incomplete splitting of a single fertilized egg, which results in one body with two heads. These rare mutations can be caused by genetic errors, environmental toxins or nutritional deficiencies during pregnancy. Polycephaly occurs most often in snakes and turtles. Occasionally, a lamb or piglet will be born with two heads. Kittens and puppies are even more rare.
Early miscarriage is the fate of most polycephalic embryos. But those that are born alive and fully-formed rarely survive more than a few hours. In addition to two heads, they often have cleft palates, irregular spines, multiple-jointed legs and breathing difficulties.
The world’s record lifespan for a two-headed calf is an amazing 17 months. Taxidermied two-headed calves are—no surprise!–real crowd pleasers at museums. But back to the poem. I share it with you here as April, which (not coincidentally) is Poetry Month, comes to a close.
The Two-headed Calf
by Laura Gilpen
Tomorrow when the farm boys find this
freak of nature, they will wrap his body
in newspaper and carry him to the museum.
But tonight he is alive and in the north
field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over
the orchard, the wind in the grass.
And as he stares into the sky, there
are twice as many stars as usual.
(April 25, 2026)