Sola, Susan de

A Party for Kevin

1. This bash for a piglet is really to show off
2. Philippe’s stylish new home, a forge renovation
3. reclaimed for the gentry, and Kevin
4. is the perfect gentleman’s perfect accessory.
5. The round of his snout softly kisses the ground;
6. he seems to have hair, blond bristles, lashes that fringe
7. a frosty and appraising blue eye.
8. He trots by on trotters, an ambulant meal, his round forms
9. roulades and cold cuts
10. ready for carving with steel knives.
11. Only a piglet, he blithely ignores us,
12. snuffes among tables and finely shod feet,
13. wagging his tiny vestigial tail.
14. In his sharp quest for fallen food,
15. he may fool us into thinking
16. he’s some sort of dog.
17. It’s hard not to scoop Kevin up like a baby,
18. but in one brash wriggle he wrestles free,
19. goes on with his search. hovering near the buffet –
20. where we are offered shashlik.
21. We sense the slippage and make pork of pig.
22. “Lamb,” I’m assured. “Or beef,” but I taste it as pork.
23. Could Kevin smell it, this breach of manners?
24. It drives him to drink: he laps
25. a forgotten gin-tonic with sparklers
26. someone left on the floor,
27. I run to retrieve it, feeling slightly absurd,
28. the strangest good deed – that
29. and the towel I’d ordered for him embroidered with Kevin.
30. It rests now on the banquette heaped with gifts:
31. a blanket, a beach ball, (four) winter mittens,
32. a leash, water dish, a wading pool,
33. a collar with Kevin spelled out in zirconias,
34. a mud pack, a brush.
35. Kevin, Kevin – a Pig Complete.
36.  
37. Months later, I stopped by to see him.
38. He’d grown large and imposing,
39. his peeps now an ear-splitting screech.
40. He’d trampled the roses,
41. chewed up the kilims, and broken a chair.
42. Philippe found that, when engaged on the phone,
43. tossing an apple kept Kevin busy crunching.
44. Going Pavlov one better, clever Kevin
45. connected the dots and exploded in wails,
46. demanding an apple as soon as it rang.
47. Unhappy, left too much alone, likely staring,
48. impatient, at the silent telephone. By year’s end,
49. he’d been moved to a petting farm, content
50. among bunnies and lambs and squat ducks.
51. Yet still, he ignores us – no need to impress –
52. though when children pat Kevin, he seems to allow it.
53. Perhaps they remind him of when he was little,
54. a prince among piglets, and seemed to us to have it all.