Marks, Corey

A Partial History of Swine

1. The Question
2.  
3. At night in the slop yard where swine
4. settle under tall yard lights cauterizing the dark,
5. the sound always comes back:
6.  
7. a mosquito’s wire-thin insistence bending in
8. and out of their ears,
9. an unanswered question.
10.  
11. — ~ —
12.  
13. DeSoto Brings Thirteen Swine to the New World
14.  
15. The swine had never been on water before.
16. For weeks they heard it sloshing the hull,
17. creaking its weight against the boards
18. they rooted along for some scattered bit of slop,
19.  
20. but saw nothing they’d never seen before —
21. not the water’s vast stranglehold on the ship,
22. nor the constant carnival of gulls —
23.  
24. just every other pig’s dim ass
25. swaying its way toward the new world.
26.  
27. — ~ —
28.  
29. Microcosm
30.  
31. The swine won’t drink from the trough.
32. They recognize something new
33.  
34. has breached the water,
35. a world without bones:
36.  
37. along the scummy bottom
38. larvae curl,
39. little triggers.
40.  
41. — ~ —
42.  
43. Swine on Christ
44.  
45. What’s he done that’s so special?
46.  
47. Bleed? Die?
48.  
49. I’ve seen that trick before.
50.  
51. — ~ —
52.  
53. Transubstantiation
54.  
55. This little piggy went to market
56. where one name strips away as scalded skin,
57. and another is uncovered in the flesh itself,
58. marbled like fat in muscle.
59.  
60. This is where decisions are made about the body,
61. where the body becomes not its parts
62. but the butcher’s sacrament:
63.  
64. Eat, and be whole.
65.  
66. — ~ —
67.  
68. The American Family Eats Pork
69.  
70. Each fork raises its own sliver of chop
71. Rub pork with garlic
72. to an American mouth
73. Dredge in flour
74. as the refrigerator murmurs a lament so constant
75. Brown in heavy skillet
76. no one hears it.
77. Heat thoroughly to avoid disease
78.  
79. — ~ —
80.  
81. The Answer
82.  
83. The pig says nothing, but whines
84. until the gunshot sucks the whine from its voice
85. under yellow light staining the slop yard with every
86. brilliance
87. but illumination.
88.  
89. — ~ —
90.  
91. A Joke
92.  
93. A mosquito and a swine are on a boat
94. after three days of drifting.
95. Finally, the swine says,
96.  
97. You must look at me and think Ham or Tripe.
98. Huff and puff. Trichinosis. Whatever.
99. But me, I’ve been thinking about History.
100.  
101. The mosquito says,
102.  
103. Soieee.