Kasischke, Laura

United States, (b. 1961)

The Cause of All My Suffering

  1. My neighbor keeps a box of baby pigs
  2. all winter in her kitchen. They are
  3.  
  4. motherless, always sleeping, sleepy
  5. creatures of blood & fog, a vapor
  6.  
  7. of them wraps my house
  8. in gauze, and the windows mist up
  9.  
  10. with their warm breath, their moist snores. They
  11. watch her peel potatoes, boil
  12.  
  13. water from the floor, wearing
  14. a steamy gown. She must be like
  15.  
  16. Demeter to them, but, like this weather
  17. to me, this box of pigs
  18.  
  19. is the cause of all my suffering. They smell
  20. of invalids, lotioned. Death is over there. When I
  21.  
  22. look toward my neighbor’s house, I see
  23. trouble looking back
  24.  
  25. at me. Horrible life! Horrible town! I start
  26. to dream their dreams. I dream
  27.  
  28. my muzzle’s pressed
  29. desperately into the whiskered
  30.  
  31. belly of my dead mother. No
  32. milk there. I dream
  33.  
  34. I slumber in a cardboard box
  35. in a human kitchen, wishing, while
  36.  
  37. a woman I don’t love
  38. mushes corn for me in a dish. In
  39.  
  40. every kitchen in the Midwest
  41. there are goddesses & pigs, the sacred
  42.  
  43. contagion of pity, of giving, of loss. You can’t
  44. escape the soft
  45.  
  46. bellies of your neighbors’ calm, the fuzzy
  47. lullabies that drift
  48.  
  49. in cloudy piglets across their lawns. I dream
  50. my neighbor cuts
  51.  
  52. one of them open, and stars fall out, and roll
  53. across the floor. It frightens me. I pray
  54.  
  55. to God to give me
  56. the ability to write
  57.  
  58. better poems than the poems of those
  59. whom I despise. But
  60.  
  61. before spring comes, my neighbor’s
  62. pigs die in her kitchen
  63.  
  64. one by one, and I
  65. catch a glimpse of my own face
  66.  
  67. in the empty collection plate, looking
  68. up at me, hungrily, one
  69.  
  70. Sunday—pink, and smudged—and ask it
  71. Isn’t that enough?

© Laura Kasischke. Where Now: new and selected poems. Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press (2017).

Old Song

  1. Some pretty girl in a small town
  2. sits down at the piano to play a song.
  3. Someone must notify the next of kin.
  4. Someone must refuse to hear the bad news.
  5. Some poor fool has to listen:
  6.  
  7. Summer again, for the children
  8. as well as for the blind, like
  9. a thousand wedding cakes crowded
  10. into the window of a bakery.
  11. Those
  12. rose-pink pigs in their pen, prettily
  13. awaiting death. The bad news
  14. inherent in that, like
  15.  
  16. a cold snake slipping
  17. through cold water, like cold water.

© Laura Kasischke. Cerise Press. Summer 2009; Vol. 1, Issue 1.

About the Poet:

Laura Kasischke, United States, (b. 1961) is a poet, novelist and educator. She has published more than seven collections of poetry and more than seven novels, with poetry awards and multiple well-reviewed works of fiction to her credit. She is the recipient of two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as several Pushcart Prizes.

Kasischke attended the University of Michigan and Columbia University. She is also currently a Professor of English Language in the MFA program and of the Residential College at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. [DES-11/19]

Additional information: