Squeal Like a Pig

some guest would always holler
on the bus, or in the parking lot
before getting close to the river,
and I’d turn, half expecting Dickey come barreling up –
dirty grin, hemorrhoidal gait. It’s not
my favorite line of his, but I love him
for that scene & all his elegant, bestial pomp,
how the world turns meaty & vegetal
in his lens, like galax or the light
of a Winnebago on I-85
with Deliverance on the VCR & six drunks
yelling let’s go rafting
as if they already weren’t.

Thorpe Moeckel
Squeal Like a Pig is reprinted from Making a Map of the River (Iris Press 2008).