How to Kill a Hog

Do you remember how close

you were to her

 

when she was farrowing

and she needed you

 

her bawling drawing

you out of bed

 

a bad dream

how you washed her vulva, soft

 

warm water over your own

hands how you scrubbed

 

even your fingernails

under your fingernails

 

before you came to the pen and the sun-

flower oil you coated yourself in

 

so she would not chafe

even as she hemorrhaged

 

and how against all this

bloody shit and hay

 

you took each piglet

out of her night and into yours

 

into your palm and cleared

its mouth its nose of mucus

 

how you brought breath

to each set of tiny lungs

 

how you washed

how you opened her

 

That is how to touch her now

 

Once she is hung

and cut straight cut

 

from rectum to neck

while the other men

 

take their cigarettes

find quick coffee, food

 

Lag behind wait

until the barn is empty

 

until you are alone

Then step inside her

 

your arms inside her

death like it is a room

 

your private room

peculiar and clean

 

Gather her organs up

into your arms

 

like you once did your mother’s robes

when you were a boy who knew nothing

 

but the scent of sweat and silk

Hold her and inhale

 

Before reaching all the way around

to snip the last tendon

before you cut the stomach

intestines kidney liver

 

before you cut her heart

out

 

and she drops into you

and drops down

 

into the cold wash tub

of this day

 

close your eyes just once

just once

 

do not turn away

 

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This poem first appeared in Barely South (April 2012) and is from Render / An Apocalypse (Cleveland State University Poetry Center, 2013).