13thWR

SWINE

The cricket outside my window
is big as a Berkshire hog.
He roots and roots at night.

I lie in bed wishing I knew
the color of his nasty eyes.
In 4-H they learn all kinds
of hatred, hysteria and hunger
plus one other: hybrid
from careless mingling.
He is an insect no more.

Except for beat, except for song.
From a body of bacon and leaf
comes sound evolved still higher.
Antennae pierce the screen
and twine, or its tail
that corkscrews past the curtains?
When I open my mouth
hush fills the room.
There is no reason to cry
about chirp or chirp. Chirp.
Bristles rub against the house.
A pig hears someone snuffle.

DECEMBER 32, DECEMBER 33

Only a few small dawns head south
down the road past midnight,
headlights' flake-filled dopplers, cars' poof gone.
And where those mini-days shine
already rises a strange collusion
of snow and purple moonglow
Egyptians couldn't have known
when they counted 365 a certainty
for all time, each year

till this one in their future's sea
on the backside of a flat world
where looking out winter's window
I wonder what to call these extra days
another end is blessed with.

- Joanne Lowery