illustration by Liebe Coolidge
John the Cat
is most my brother,
almost pig
even though he
leaps among branches,
climbs to high shelves,
is silky.
Black and white Catpig,
I outgrew you,
but once we matched
She-human gave us
our milk from
our pitcher.
Quiet we sat
under the sumacs of Vermont
and watched
the birds leave,
the first snow
pepper each other's
somber faces.
When they caressed
and held in loving arms
the small pig that I was,
I was so glad, I blessed
my singular fate.
How could I know
my Humans would not grow
to fit me, as I became
Sylvia the Sow?
He-and-She-Human stayed the same, and now even look smaller.
Perhaps I should not have learned
to adore
pleasures that could not last?
I grew so fast.
My destiny
kept me lean, and yet
my weight increased
Great Sylvia, I must stay
under the table at the humans' feast.
And once, scratching my back on it,
I made the table fall
dishes and all!
How could a cherished piglet
have grown so tall?
I love my own Humans and their friends,
but let it be said,
that my litters may heed it well,
their race is dangerous.
They mock the race of Swine, and call
"swinish" men they condemn.
Have they not appetites? Do we plan for slaughter to fill our troughs?
Their fat ones, despised, waddle large-footed,
their thin ones hoard inedible discs and scraps called "money."
Us they fatten, us they exchange for this;
and they breed us not that our life
may be whole, pig-life
thriving alongside dog-life, bird-life,
grass-lite, all
the lives of earth-creatures,
but that we may be devoured. Yet,
it's not being killed for food
destroys us. Other animals
hunt one another. But only Humans,
I think, first corrupt their prey
as we are corrupted, stuffed with temptation until we can't move,
crowded until we turn on each other,
our name and nature abused
It is their greed
overfattens us.
Dirt we lie in
is never unclean as their minds,
who take our deformed lives
without thought, without
respect for the Spirit Pig.