George, Jenny

United States, (contemporary)

Portrait of a Pig as a Bird

  1. Small, bitten wings ornament the head.
  2.  
  3. Song whistles from the nostrils:
  4. breathing in is thrushes, breathing out is cranes.
  5. The eyes are black seeds.
  6. There is a crooked delicacy in the legs.
  7.  
  8. The pig is a bird of mud.
  9. It nests in wallows and beds of muck,
  10. brooding for open sky.
  11.  
  12. Flocks of wild pigs migrating
  13. across fields of goldenrod
  14. used to bruise the land each September.
  15. Early explorers wrote in their diaries
  16. of a flush of pigs darkening the hills, pigs
  17. as far as the eye could see.
  18. You can jab your prod in any direction
  19. and get one.
  20.  
  21. An enclosed pig gives us cagey looks.
  22. Something flightless is cramped in its heart.

The Traveling Line

  1. The sun on their backs is a stroke of burning gold.
  2. They smell the bright dust of the yard.
  3. The pigs are loaded onto trucks.
  4. The pigs are prodded through a passage.
  5. They roll their many eyes.
  6. They see the hind legs of the one ahead.
  7. They call to one another like birds.
  8. The pigs become a traveling line.
  9. Moving up the ramp the fever rises.
  10. There is the clank of metal.
  11. They hold still inside confusion.
  12. A current passes through their bodies.
  13. Blood comes from their mouths in strings.
  14. By the ankles they are swiftly inverted.
  15. Blood comes from their mouths in strings.
  16. A current passes through their bodies.
  17. They hold still inside confusion.
  18. There is the clank of metal.
  19. Moving up the ramp the fever rises.
  20. The pigs become a traveling line.
  21. They call to one another like birds.
  22. They see the hind legs of the one ahead.
  23. They roll their many eyes.
  24. The pigs are prodded through a passage.
  25. The pigs are loaded onto trucks.
  26. They smell the bright dust of the yard.
  27. The sun on their backs is a stroke of burning gold.

Notes on Pigs

  1. A pig has eyelashes.
  2. The pig’s eyelashes function like our own eyelashes,
  3. but have a different meaning.
  4. A pig who cares about her looks is absurd.
  5. A pig does not take a long evening bath, with a glass
  6. of sparkling grapefruit juice set on the porcelain ledge.
  7. Many people live near animals.
  8. A person who cares about a pig is a rare thing.
  9. Neither a pig nor a person is invincible.
  10. A pig is a tasty thing, when killed and cooked.
  11. A person dressed in a pig costume is trying to be funny.
  12. Pigs have superior eyesight.
  13. A pig can see the silver belly of a plane moving across the sky.
  14. Or a beetle crawling up a fence post.
  15. Certain pink tulips, when the sun hits them, have the color
  16. of a clean pig.
  17. A pig can only give birth to a person in a dream.
  18. When a pig dies, it is either mourned by other pigs or not.

Obstacles to Handling

Many common elements of the processing system present obstacles for the livestock.

  1. Rustling cloth.
  2. Sun glinting off a metal bar.
  3. A hallway that turns at a right angle.
  4. A man in an orange hat standing in a new place.
  5. The clanking of chains.
  6. Shadow of chains hanging.
  7. A rod coming toward the front of the neck.
  8.  
  9. The fears become large; they rise
  10. from their objects and enter space
  11. like a kind of halo.
  12. And at the center, a monument
  13. of pure stillness, an uncrossable field…
  14.  
  15. A hose hissing.
  16. A gap of more than four inches.
  17. Darkness coming out of a hole in the floor.

Ears

  1. The pig is already dead.
  2. It hangs from the ankle,
  3. slumped as light
  4. through a heavy curtain.
  5. Draped onto the slab.
  6. One ear folded like a lily
  7. under the ample head,
  8. pressed nearly in half,
  9. silent origami.
  10. The other ear,
  11. large as a trumpet flower,
  12. turned open as if to receive
  13. the sound of a distant thing
  14. approaching –
  15. a train through fall fields,
  16. an insect in forgotten rafters
  17. droning its thin scarves of sound.
  18. The one ear
  19. bent shut, weighted
  20. under the pig’s last greatness.
  21. The other, supple horn,
  22. listens outward, catches
  23. the squeal of the gate hinge.

Influence
The quiet handling of pigs produces quieter pigs.

  1. True, we mold the world.
  2. Something passes through our hands –
  3. pig, a person, clay or alloy,
  4. some living material – and the handling
  5. shapes the thing.
  6. I plump the down pillows into blimps.
  7. I split a melon and two neat halves fall away.
  8. Things proceed from us.
  9. This illusion is smooth and enduring.
  10.  
  11. But in certain rare moments, the gears kink,
  12. sputter, and reverse. Then objects
  13. flash us with their genius.
  14. Fingers twined in yarn become yarn.
  15. A knife’s intention travels up the arm.
  16. And the pigs – hushed, breathing
  17. calmly in their pens – quiet us into handlers.

Editor’s Note:

All the apoems above are from:

© Jenny George. The Dream of Reason. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press. www.coppercanyonpress.org


About the Poet:

Jenny George, United States, (contemporary), is a poet. She also works for transformative social change as a program coordinator for the Hidden Leaf Foundation, a Buddhist-based social justice organization. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fund, the MacDowell Colony, and Yaddo Corporation.

Jenny George earned her BA in human ecology and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her work has appeared in Beloit Poetry Journal, Ploughshares, Narrative, Cimarron Review, and The Collagist, among others. [DES-01/22]

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