Pig

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Now, students, if you cannot do the work

Because religion plays a role, because

The pigs are taken from the mother’s womb

When she is slaughtered—well, you’ll get a C.

The teacher had a secret face, a snarl

Suppressed beneath her lips, her oval glasses

Withdrew the spark from pea-green eyes. And when

She handed out the babes, I had a hunch

She’d birthed them from herself. With hands beneath

Her skirt, she lured them—and formaldehyde.

I placed my dozing baby in the tray.

Her little tongue poked out for mother’s milk.

The fine hairs of her legs betrayed an ache

I could not name. I opened her with a razor,

Made flaps of skin like children’s hands in prayer.

Removed her rib cage. She would reveal her

soft secrets made of gold and pearls. But I

Beheld the grey-gone heart & lungs of her.

And what was once an impish light was now

engulfed by dark as I split open, broke

apart from eons past and eons hence.

And what, for all this work, did I receive?

For all her pain and mine—I got a B.