Ross Gay

Song of the Pig Who Gave the Poet, Age 3, Worms

You didn't know what the hands
that held your hands would do
to me, my mother, and siblings. You couldn't
imagine it. And so,
instead of escaping your clutch
and snuggle, I waited, threw my tiny
hooves in the air, gave you my belly.
The other hogs watched.
Although I dreamt of opening your throat
with the same blade stained
with the blood of my kin, your touch
felt good, honest, kissing my snout and eyes,
my pig's mouth. And when you left
(walking backward, weren't you?), I knew
I had marked you, your little mouth, mouth
that kissed me, whispered in my ears,
that spoke to no one about the mud
and shit caked in my hooves, that loved the taste
of bacon and ham, and pork chops
most of all--for the lies and smiles,
and for your dull memory (do you
recall the color of my eyes,
the speckles of pink crawling across my snout, the smell
of my spine's smooth ridge?), for this especially,
I tried to mark you with the pain of worms, which,
like everything else, failed: hands, snout,
windblown sand of our bones.

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Ross Gay's poems have appeared in Atlanta Review, Harvard Review, North American Review, Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art, and Margie: The American Journal of Poetry. He is a Cave Canem fellow and a basketball coach. contents | previous | next