Mudlark
A big pink pig—Grand Champ, no less—dozes in the sunny
dirt, domed belly swelling tidally just past the screw-
tailed rump. It looks a little like a naked fat man
snoozing at the fair—refugee from a California
nudist camp or party gone all wrong. Bristled back,
pink shoulders sloping vulnerable, while one ear flicks
a fly. A boy with cornsilk hair works up the guts to stretch
a skinny arm between the bars and poke its flank.
That’s all we want sometimes—to touch the alien
and ugly things, and know them beautiful.
A plaque above the hog pen reads Purchased
by Kowalski so by Christmas he’ll be sausages,
breakfast links and hams. But today is not a day to die—
soft earth, late August sun, the smell of deep fried
Twinkies carried on the breeze. A human palm warm
on tired flesh pats gently, tentative with awe
and the boy’s small face delighted like he’s seeing,
not an exhausted pig, but fireworks, a big top show,
the bright world from a ferris wheel, 200 feet below.