Lindsay, Sarah

Toby the Sapient Pig

1. Madame Vashti’s scrapbook remembers
2. Toby the Sapient Pig. The oldest volume,
3. the one with brown inflexible clippings,
4. handbills with deep lead-bitten letters,
5. flaking posters, red and black, that commanded
6. ticket buyers – except for pregnant women –
7. to see, to see for themselves
8.  
9. the five-legged calf, the toad born in solid rock,
10. the natural unicorn, the amphibious boy,
11. the lady who swallowed a needle that came out her foot,
12. Toby, who could remember which card you chose
13. or add any two numbers under one hundred,
14. and the babies that Madame Vashti’s great-uncle
15. cleaned every Wednesday.
16.  
17. Her maternal great-grandmother’s friend’s friend’s mistress’s
18. washerwoman’s sister, he told her,
19. lost three husbands: to war, then the sea, then fire.
20. She never had children, she just grew fatter and fatter
21. till her tired wits wandered away, and on the night
22. she forgot her husbands’ names she was taken in labor,
23. eighty years old, and delivered three stone babies.
24.  
25. The engravings show everyone smiling harmlessly,
26. even the calf, their flesh paper-colored or red or black.
27. But Madame V knows the living exhibits looked pale,
28. a little gray, like the displays in jars of alcohol –
29. the two-headed snake, the snake with tiny feet,
30. the mouthless salamander –
31. and wary, as if a bigger jar might be waiting.
32.  
33. She turns a broken page. Toby died young.
34. The pig-faced lady replaced him: a she-bear, shaved,
35. prodded, probably underfed. The great-uncle
36. slipped her apples and showed her the other freaks.
37. When her keeper proposed addition and subtraction,
38. she put her gloves to her naked face
39. and shed real tears. She knew too much already.