Ellis, Phillip

PIG-HUNT

1. What a weekend. The hunt had failed,
2. no pigs or anything. All that time
3. wasted, for nothing. I drove back
4. into the western suburbs. Streets
5. of houses stretched out. Nothing
6. but a wilderness of cars and houses, stretched
7. hours around. Shut in, stifled,
8. I tried to concentrate. But the dumb bastards
9. around me kept forcing my temperature
10. gauge up. Odds on, my radiator will boil
11. over into a black rage.
12.  
13. Suddenly, a car swerves into my
14. lane. Brakes, the other bastard
15. yells me to fuck off. I break. I bare
16. my teeth and want to break down
17. and scream back. Ram my car
18. up the other bastard’s fucking
19. arse, see how he likes them apples.
20.  
21. Instead, I park with trembling breath
22. ratcheting my body in spasms. Guilty,
23. frustrated. I calm, blank mymind
24. with thoughts of nothing more beautiful and peaceful
25. than being prepared for a dean kill,
26. the pig in my sights, witless and still.
27.  
28. Still, I calm, my body stops
29. shaking. I reach a steady white
30. light. And silently, I get out. I take
31. my gun, I load it, and, taking aim
32. across the park, plug a shot
33. directly through a young girl’s eye
34. as she sits slouched on the swings, licking
35. a leaking ice cream. She falls
36. back without a word uttered,
37. and lies still on the wood chips.
38.  
39. I put the gun away, stretch
40. my shoulders, and get back in, whistling
41. peacefully, my heart a placid rhythm.