United States, (b. 1946)
Feral
- Wild hogs saunter beside Highway 62,
- wander into the brush
- as if we don’t matter,
- as if they own the Breaks,
- land that earned its name,
- strewn with wagons abandoned
- like sloughed snake skins,
- its arroyos cut for hooves
- or sinuous bellies rubbing against sandstone
- in hard rattles.
- Dumped a generation ago
- from Georgia wagons swallowed by sand,
- some hogs withered,
- but others ran squalling in the heat
- and dug into shade.
- Now wild hogs own the breaks, their hides
- tough, ignoring mesquite thorns and scrub.
- At night, they skulk near asphalt,
- luring sharp-sighted young men
- who wear tight Levis
- and starched shirts, those
- who strut their chests in Dodge trucks
- with duals and a gun rack in the rear window,
- ease through the backwoods on moonlit nights,
- hands wrapped around longnecks
- or thighs of blondes with big hair,
- searching the breaks
- for hogs.
About the Poet:
Janice D. Whittington, United States, (b. 1946), is a poet and educator. She has taught English and writing for more than thirty years at the high school level, most currently at Lubbock High School in Lubbock, TX. Whittington is the author of the poetry book Into a Thousand Mouths, poetry chapbook Does My Father Dream of Sons? and is co-editor of The Waltz He Was Born For: An Introduction to the Writing of Walt McDonald.
Whittington is a member of the Lubbock, Texas Ad Hoc Writing Group who share and critique their own current works – published as well as works-in-progress and do public readings. She has had poems published in journals such as The Beloit Poetry Journal, Touchstone, Mississippi Valley Review, Kansas Quarterly, Writer’s Forum, Southern Poetry Review and others. [DES-07/22]