Buck, Janet

The Three Big Pigs

1. With money’s vain and silly reach,
2. they bought a brand new Suburban,
3. parked it neatly in an urban nest,
4. killed the weeds, barked the lawn, and went
5. shopping for emus and pot-belly pigs.
6. “They’re trainable and couth
7. expressions of bourgeoisie,”
8. said bibles of their country club.
9. Now, Mother Nature intervened.
10. You pack three unschooled pigs
11. in the back seat, stop for lunch to
12. fill up the hump, pat their heads,
13. and lock the car — then you learn.
14. As a common crow does in the middle
15. of an eagle’s hungry path.
16. Swoop, swat, gulp — nothing but feathers left
17. in a pillowcase of threadbare clouds.
18.  
19. Idiot number one put pig number one
20. on a leash and thought it would hold —
21. rather the same as tying down
22. a cyclone with a rope of pearls.
23. The pigs weren’t grown, but they knew their mud
24. and obedience class was a children’s book
25. with milkshake madness in its lap.
26. While the second pig slept,
27. the third was dreaming up his exit plan —
28. a freedom burst through a nose of glass
29. the way all beasts return to their feral states.
30. With dignity and a humongous mess.
31. Slivers were stupid evidence
32. of carnal’s smugness at its finest
33. meeting fateful’s thorny throne.
34. Like Ahab in the mouths of whales,
35. their wallets weren’t prepared
36. for the manner in which oink oink wins.
37. Garnering these “inside pets”
38. was like fishing for trout and
39. hooking the jaws of Moby Dick.
40. It makes a funnier poem
41. since it wasn’t our car.