Howell, Rebecca Gayle

United States, (b. 1975)

How to Be a Pig

  1. Be clever
  2. Be quick to learn
  3.  
  4. Dream in color
  5. Dream in techni-
  6.  
  7. color trees
  8. Sleep forage
  9.  
  10. between gold leaves
  11. Squeeze out
  12.  
  13. twenty young a year
  14. Make them fight
  15.  
  16. for your teats
  17. Dream that one
  18.  
  19. is flame tip
  20. black spots
  21.  
  22. Dream that he
  23. gets the teat he wants
  24.  
  25. See red
  26. while you
  27.  
  28. let the flies
  29. land
  30.  
  31. Throw
  32. tantrums
  33.  
  34. Stop throwing
  35. tantrums
  36.  
  37. Pavlov says
  38.  
  39. All pigs are hysterical
  40. All pigs are hysterical
  41.  
  42. Pavlov says

© Rebecca Gayle Howell. Render / An Apocalypse. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center (2013).

How to Time the Kill

  1. Desire:
  2.  
  3. She must be without it
  4.  
  5. If she is in heat
  6. if when you put your hands
  7.  
  8. on either side of her hog back
  9. and press down as to open her
  10.  
  11. if she stands still
  12. and ready
  13.  
  14. her meat will taste
  15. strong like a boar’s
  16.  
  17. You want to lie
  18. back wait
  19.  
  20. quiet
  21.  
  22. until she does not know
  23. what she wants more
  24.  
  25. Size:
  26.  
  27. If you come out back to find
  28. she fills and cannot rotate in her pen
  29.  
  30. if she is more twice your weight
  31. you’re late
  32.  
  33. You want to overfeed her but not
  34. overfeed her
  35.  
  36. You want to make sure
  37. for your sake
  38.  
  39. she is well kept       bloated
  40. but not threatening
  41.  
  42. that on her day of reckoning
  43. she feels the stretch of her skin
  44.  
  45. and knows she did not choose
  46. her body       hot and exhausting
  47.  
  48. knows that you chose for her
  49. every day of her eating even this one
  50.  
  51. knows she needs you
  52. to call her sooey sooey
  53.  
  54. and she will show you how she comes
  55.  
  56.  
  57. Sex:
  58.  
  59. If you risk a male to slaughter
  60. plan ahead
  61.  
  62. When he is still a piglet
  63. grip him between your thighs
  64.  
  65. Take his hind legs push them
  66. back like a woman’s legs
  67.  
  68. when she wants you
  69. while the cut is prepared
  70.  
  71. Keep his head down
  72. Once the scrotum opens
  73.  
  74. the testicles should pop
  75. Cut both off
  76.  
  77. Throw them in the weeds
  78. Coat his wound with ashes
  79.  
  80. while your legs now soaked, burning
  81. stand
  82.  
  83. Weather:
  84.  
  85. The air must be so cold
  86. as to stun the flies
  87.  
  88. for as long as possible
  89. against this perfume
  90.  
  91. of ruin they are made for
  92. every winged beat of waiting
  93.  
  94. so cold it stuns you when you walk out
  95. in that noiseless hour before
  96.  
  97. your dawn your lungs
  98. to seize as they wake
  99.  
  100. into this embrace
  101. your mind to seize
  102.  
  103. when you first inhale
  104. the gun’s sharp glare
  105.  
  106. On that day your day of killing
  107. let nothing freeze
  108.  
  109. You must in this winter of your weighing choice
  110. be a man
  111.  
  112. Act
  113. Act like you know what you know

© Rebecca Gayle Howell. Render / An Apocalypse. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center (2013).

How to Kill a Hog

  1. Do you remember how close
  2. you were to her
  3.  
  4. when she was farrowing
  5. and she needed you
  6.  
  7. her bawling drawing
  8. you out of bed
  9.  
  10. a bad dream
  11. how you washed her vulva, soft
  12.  
  13. warm water over your own
  14. hands how you scrubbed
  15.  
  16. even your fingernails
  17. under your fingernails
  18.  
  19. before you came to the pen and the sun-
  20. flower oil you coated yourself in
  21.  
  22. so she would not chafe
  23. even as she hemorrhaged
  24.  
  25. and how against all this
  26. bloody shit and hay
  27.  
  28. you took each piglet
  29. out of her night and into yours
  30.  
  31. into your palm and cleared
  32. its mouth its nose of mucus
  33.  
  34. how you brought breath
  35. to each set of tiny lungs
  36.  
  37. how you washed
  38. how you opened her
  39.  
  40. That is how to touch her now
  41.  
  42. Once she is hung
  43. and cut straight cut
  44.  
  45. from rectum to neck
  46. while the other men
  47.  
  48. take their cigarettes
  49. find quick coffee, food
  50.  
  51. Lag behind wait
  52. until the barn is empty
  53.  
  54. until you are alone
  55. Then step inside her
  56.  
  57. your arms inside her
  58. death like it is a room
  59.  
  60. your private room
  61. peculiar and clean
  62.  
  63. Gather her organs up
  64. into your arms
  65.  
  66. like you once did your mother’s robes
  67. when you were a boy who knew nothing
  68.  
  69. but the scent of sweat and silk
  70. Hold her and inhale
  71.  
  72. Before reaching all the way around
  73. to snip the last tendon
  74.  
  75. before you cut the stomach
  76. intestines kidney liver
  77.  
  78. before you cut her heart
  79. out
  80.  
  81. and she drops into you
  82. and drops down
  83.  
  84. into the cold wash tub
  85. of this day
  86.  
  87. close your eyes just once
  88. just once
  89.  
  90. do not turn away

© Rebecca Gayle Howell. Render / An Apocalypse. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center (2013).

How to Cure

  1. Because the fly
  2. does not rest
  3.  
  4. because it is a machine
  5. its body formed from bronze
  6.  
  7. its head, bullion
  8. its wings from glass
  9.  
  10. because this small alloy
  11. cast in flight
  12.  
  13. needs muscle
  14. still humid with life
  15.  
  16. you have no time
  17. to lose
  18.  
  19. After the slaughter
  20. after the neighbors have gone
  21.  
  22. and the blood has soaked the ground
  23. after the knife
  24.  
  25. drop your cracked hands
  26. into the ice bath
  27.  
  28. Knead her shoulders, thighs
  29. knead each length
  30.  
  31. slow like it is your own
  32. sore from this day’s already long work
  33.  
  34. Rub her with salt black pepper
  35. molasses and fear
  36.  
  37. Keep that glowing scavenger
  38. away from what it needs
  39.  
  40. because you are a machine
  41. and this is what you are here for
  42.  
  43. When the peach trees blossom
  44. when your weather has turned
  45.  
  46. lay hickory and apple
  47. lay sassafras, fuel
  48.  
  49. fresh split tender and green
  50. In this open house
  51.  
  52. logs transcendent with air
  53. no mud or mortar or screen
  54.  
  55. start the smoke rolling
  56. uncontrollable
  57.  
  58. great smothering
  59. great next coming
  60.  
  61. Each blazing day counted
  62. by every pound of flesh
  63.  
  64. you own

© Rebecca Gayle Howell. Render / An Apocalypse. Cleveland: Cleveland State University Poetry Center (2013).

About the Poet:

Rebecca Gayle Howell, United States, (b. 1975) is a poet, publisher and educator. She earned her BA and her MA at the University of Kentucky, her MFA at Drew University, and her Ph.D. at Texas Tech University. She also apprenticed under the Southern experimental art photographer and writer James Baker Hall, as well as the feminist poet and critic Alicia Ostriker.

Among her honors are fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown and the Carson McCullers Center, as well as a Pushcart Prize. From 2017-2019 she served as the James Still Writer-in-Residence at Hindman Settlement School, where she founded Fireside Industries, an imprint of University Press of Kentucky charged with advancing Appalachian literature.

Howell lives in Lexington where she is on faculty at the University of Kentucky’s Lewis Honors College. Since 2014, she has served as Poetry Editor for Oxford American. [DES-12/19]

Additional information: