Cotton, John

Pigs
(four ways of looking at)

1. To Westacre Belle and Prestatyn Lucy
2.  
3. Scrubbed pink
4. They look the most naked of animals,
5. Except for the coarse hair,
6. Almost colorless and seen close to.
7. With ears like awnings over their small eyes,
8. They root with their blunt and specially
9. Gristled noses, their legs almost
10. Ridiculously delicate
11. For all that warmth and fertility.
12. Twelve or thirteen a time, is it?
13. She grunts to let them know they can feed.
14. Few are allowed to reach full size:
15. Boiled down they make excellent lard.
16. The delicate coloring
17. And firmness of line
18. Remind one
19. Of a water color by Dürer.
20. As St. John and Socrates
21. Were at pains to point out:
22. Nature is always
23. Imitating art.
24.  
25. Domesticated since neolithic times
26. They are still indifferent to man.
27. Clumsy, sometimes bad tempered,
28. They can crack a leg by rolling on it
29. Or smother a litter. And those jaws,
30. Like clapper boards, that open as if
31. The face was falling apart,
32. Can make short work of a piglet
33. Or an arm.
34. In Chinese ideography,
35. A roof with a pig under it
36. Means home.