Simon Carnell
The Pig
after Saba
The swill, the flower of filth, is purified
by his instinctive hunger for it:
take it away and he shrieks like a spanked child.
But what for him is a great treat
is, to your way of thinking, a torment:
he’s no inkling of why the farmer’s wife
chasing the poor thing about the yard
wants him porky and well stuffed:
clueless, like the rest of the living,
as to what he’s destined for
when he’s reached perfection.
If you look out of his eyes, switch skins,
you can feel the knife, the cut throat scream
as the dog barks among the onlookers,
and the farmer’s wife laughs in the open door.
You’re the one fighting back the tears,
looking into the porker’s beatific face.
Page(s) 30
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