Davina Prince
Labours of the Month: December
December we kill the pig. Not so much
to mark the drawn year's dying days with blood
(though some say gore splashed onto winter's mud
will bring rare life in spring) but more to hutch
food for lean months. There's bacon, fat hams strung
beam-high over the smoking kitchen range;
sausages flecked with herbs, speckled with strange
spices from pedlars, link-looped-loosely, and slung
safe from sleet-sheltering cats. Start of the year,
January, February, hearth-bound and bare,
hearing rains filling dykes, swilling drains, we'll share
what this pig renders up, working from ear
to tail, through shoulders, trotters, legs and hand,
brawn, puddings, crackling; comforted to know
December's labours always will be so:
killing our own fat pig on common land.
Page(s) 23
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