Bishop, Elizabeth

A Prodigal

1. The brown enormous odor he lived by
2. was too close, with its breathing and thick hair,
3. for him to judge. The floor was rotten; the sty
4. was plastered halfway up with glass-smooth dung.
5. Light-lashed, self-righteous, above moving snouts,
6. the pigs’ eyes followed him, a cheerful stare —
7. even to the sow that always ate her young —
8. till, sickening, he leaned to scratch her head.
9. But sometimes mornings after drinking bouts
10. (he hid the pints behind the two-by-fours),
11. the sunrise glazed the barnyard mud with red
12. the burning puddles seemed to reassure.
13. And then he thought he almost might endure
14. his exile yet another year or more.
15.  
16. But evenings the first star came to warn.
17. The farmer whom he worked for came at dark
18. to shut the cows and horses in the barn
19. beneath their overhanging clouds of hay,
20. with pitchforks, faint forked lightnings, catching light,
21. safe and companionable as in the Ark.
22. The pigs stuck out their little feet and snored.
23. The lantern — like the sun, going away —
24. laid on the mud a pacing aureole.
25. Carrying a bucket along a slimy board,
26. he felt the bats’ uncertain staggering flight,
27. his shuddering insights, beyond his control,
28. touching him. But it took him a long time
29. finally to make up his mind to go home.