United States, (b. 1979)
PIGSKIN
- Fumble, and it’s half-wit
- barn-hands trying to tackle
- the pig – it slips out from the
- belly, can’t be handled
- without finesse. The baby
- glossed and not breathing until ankled
- upside down and slapped on the ass. A sour-milk
- stink like outdated candy
- from the chocolate shop I worked
- at that went to fatten hogs
- in Illinois. They’d shove IVs full
- of corn syrup, Coke-glucose high and I swear
- that’s what got those athletes fainting
- on the field. As 4-H club kids they bred
- their stock for the State Fair. The girl
- across the street produced a two
- hundred pound sow and later one
- of her own. At school, the fetus arrived
- in a formaldehyde-filled plastic
- bag. We were to dissect – first the piglet’s
- underside through the intestines. Nervous
- system by the end of the week, we slit
- along the spine, the skull. Some joker
- sliced from ear to ear, peeled the face
- off, pressed it mask-like against his. Porker,
- swine – the thing can scream and will
- when its legs are tied. At the Fair, it’s wrestle
- a pig and take it home. Rain, and the turf
- becomes slop. There goes Chester,
- Buttercup, weaned from a bottle.
About the Poet:
Emily Rosko, United States, (b. 1979), is a poet and editor and educator. Rosko earned her BA from Purdue University, her MFA from Cornell University, and her PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
She previously taught at Cornell as a Visiting Assistant Professor. Currently, she is Associate Professor of English at the College of Charleston, the Director of the MFA Creative Writing Program. She is also Poetry Editor for Crazyhorse literary journal.
Her collections of poetry include: Weather Inventions (2018); Prop Rockery (2012); and Raw Goods Inventory (2006). Rosko’s poems have been published in Agni, Antioch Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Crab Orchard Review, The Denver Quarterly, Epoch, Laurel Review, Missouri Review, New American Writing, New Orleans Review, Pleiades, Tupelo Quarterly, West Branch and others. [DES-01/22]
Additional information:
- Emily Rosko – https://www.erosko.com/