The Pig Man
The sow rolls over. One scoop of his body
and each plump piglet-finger is turned.
Warmed. Baked. Pink.
Then, slumping over low wall, hat nudged from forehead,
hands clasped, as in prayer, the pig man watches
the sunset spread red across the Fens.
An hour on, lowering tiredness to upturned bucket;
rolls down shirt sleeves, flicks match, plummets
to pool of dark memories:
long days sowing furrows into field,
Beety Bog that sucked his best friend from his grasp,
lonely hours of fishing Nine Mile Drain, until at last
he caught his one true prize.
Now this swish and swirl of a girl has gone, loneliness
seeping in, stagnation of purpose, of reason, begin.
Roads that stretched like possibilities,
shrivel into worms.
Land he has loved all his life clings to his boots,
slows and irritates him as he trudges a routine
through the middle of his days.
Sow stirs. He tucks a boot against runt. Lifeless.
Stained by infra-red, lifts like a prize potato
carries it across the yard into the night
to bury.
His spade bites deep through the black earth,
slicing him wide open.
Page(s) 26
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