Porkopolis

Saint Francis And The Sow

• The bud
• stands for all things,
• even for those things that don't flower,
• for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
• though sometimes it is necessary
• to reteach a thing its loveliness,
• to put a hand on its brow
• of the flower
• and retell it in words and in touch
• it is lovely
• until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
• as Saint Francis
• put his hand on the creased forehead
• of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
• blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
• began remembering all down her thick length,
• from the earthen snout all the way
• through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
• from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
• down through the great broken heart
• to the blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
• from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths
• sucking and blowing beneath them:
• the long, perfect loveliness of sow.