Griebel, Rosemary

Canada, (b. 1957)

THE PIGS

  1. Maybe it was the way we became animals.
  2. The rusty smell of turning meat on the grill,
  3. the private urges of the bedroom, memory,
  4. the summer heat and the women arriving
  5. in his truck, night after night. The women
  6. arriving with pink purses, thinking they were safe
  7. from the street. And the pigs sleeping,
  8. making those little noises that pigs make
  9. when they sleep. Their velvet ears the size
  10. of a man’s hands. And what they can do.
  11. The hands of one man.
  12.  
  13. Or maybe it was the season. Fall coming on
  14. and that heavy light dragging across the land.
  15. The details deepened the day.
  16. We couldn’t talk because there is no justice
  17. when you know nothing is as it seems, nothing the same.
  18.  
  19. Remembering how as a teenager I fed pigs, an age
  20. when the boys in big trucks talked about porking
  21. the girls, and I loved their eyes. I loved the soft light
  22. of the pigs’ eyes when they looked up
  23. from the trough. They trusted me to feed them,
  24. would eat anything: fermenting grain, bones
  25. cabbage heads. Aren’t we all born
  26. into a trust with this world? And with what measure
  27. and certitude do we get into sorrow’s truck and ride.

© Rosemary Griebel. Yes. Calgary, AB: Frontenac House (2010).

About the Poet:

Rosemary Griebel (b. 1957), is a Canadian poet and librarian. Griebel majored in Canadian literature at Simon Fraser University, received a Master’s in English at King’s College in London, and a Master’s in Library Science from the University of British Columbia.

Her current work as Manager, Special Projects at the Calgary Public Library allows her to support the local literary community and foster a love of words and ideas within the city. She currently serves on the Board of the Writer’s Guild of Alberta and is a former Board member of the Markin Flanagan Distinguished Writers Program.

Rosemary’s poems have been published on CBC’s radio program, Alberta Anthology, in national journals and literary anthologies, in the Alberta Transit’s “Poetry in Motion” series, and in chapbooks by Leaf Press. Her work is included in The Best Canadian Poetry in English 2010, edited by Lorna Crozier. Yes (2010) is her first book of poems. [DES-08/14]

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