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Steel Toe Review

This Time, I’m No Child (Three Poems)

Steel Toe Review

November 25, 2016

2016

This Time, I’m No Child

He leaves, so I reassemble my father’s slaughtered hog: reconcile
balls with sockets, incant flesh back to bone, refasten his old rope
and return carcass to a sturdy swing branch. I replace tin bucket,
reunite sow guts with stomach, recollect steaming blood running
from its open throat, rebottle a song of immense distress and wipe
his reflected face from two wild eyes. He serenaded beasts before
butchering them, priced by the pound, wrapped up in wax paper,
sold to poor boys on Mama’s credit with a loaf of stale bread and
half a dozen eggs. Restless, I swim toward the last pulpy remnant
of a descended sun. Treading out there is where I swore off pork.

© 2020 by Keith M. Donnell Jr

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