United States, (b. 1948)
What the Bride Saw
- The hottest afternoon in August,
- Three gilts nosed under the fence,
- Rooted up the new garden until the man
- Raged out of the house, swearing
- And running
- For fifty minutes he chased to get them in.
- One snorted its pure
- Defiance, would not be guided
- To the hoglot, wore the man
- To a humid frazzle. He’d had all
- He would take; found a two-by-four
- Near the shed; swung it, for practice
- In mid-air.
- He would never talk, later, of how
- He clubbed the pig in a corner, chopping
- At its hide until it collapsed, grunting
- And snorting, the bright blood splotching
- Up the fence they’d painted “Barnyard
- White” the week before. He couldn’t
- Stop chopping.
- No one now would believe it, she often
- Thought, after the years of his deep
- Silence, after seeing him walk away
- From a fight or two. But she knew
- The fury in him, and worked to keep
- On his good side.
© Victoria McCabe. from: Rape, Incest, Battery: women writing out the pain, edited by Miriam Kalman Harris. Fort Worth, Texas: TCU Press (2000).
About the Poet:
Victoria McCabe (b. 1948) is a U.S. poet and teacher. McCabe received her Ph.D., from the University of Denver and most recently she taught creative writing and English at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and was also Poetry Editor of the Writers Forum
McCabe’s books include Victorian Poems (1970), John Keats’s Porridge (1975), and Until Death (1980). She has published poems in many journals, including The American Poetry Review, The Literary Review, South Dakota Review, and New Letters. [DES-07/12]