I’m off to feed the village pig, my pockets
full of freckled pears. Winston’s snuffling
the yard, back turned, arse bare, busy with
affairs of state, his snout in the trough, legs
mired in socks of mud. I call him and he
comes apace: two hundred pounds of
lard, bacon, pudding blood. He’s happy
to see me, grunts as if he knows my
face – or I’m so deeply sad I imagine that.
These small gifts make him happy though
the iron gate clangs shut: fruits gone
bad from our bowl, a tickled gut when
he goes belly up to play: he’s not like
a pig in shit, he is one, foraging the yard
all day, thinking whatever pigs think
in the bounty of their world. The pears
are gone, hurled to his humongous
jaws. I think how quick he’d gorge
on me: Francesco Raccosta fed half
dead to Calabrian swine: Not a fucking
thing left, his Mafioso rival, Simone
Pepe opined post-prandially, Not a
hope. Unreal! admiring Frank’s capacity
to squeal like a pig while being eaten
by them: a fittingly post-modern
trope for a criminally unwilling meal.
Winston’s above paranoid alarm, doesn’t
seem to see his death beneath my charms:
the captive bolt, the gun’s held breath,
dark in its Teflon sheath. He’s politely
chuffed by the treats we bring, batting
his eyelashes, teetering on cloven toes,
chest puffed out just so: a pampered
baritone about to sing; a die-hard-right
politico; sus domesticus unflitched;
salt-shy pork; a plutocrat fattening.