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Show Delivering a Pig 200 naked watts-- shaft of golden dust streams to the mud floor of the barn-needles blinkless eyes. Above, the rotten vault of oak's a boomerang of hiss & grunt. Dobbins, wary, twist wide lips through stall-slats; toms mewl, flame-eyed, from the loft. --Sudden bulge of backside, forelegs writhe, there's slow relief. Around her sanguine grunters, mucus-spumed, thrash in the straw. We pray last pig. But nothing comes. She heaves once more, sucks whistling air, & stills. A slight ooze trickles leg. Blind rage of born piglets, beating air, snaps at her teats. Spasm at the haunch! a tiny hoof appears ... & slides back in. Shrieks split wood, the barn's a rocking din! Startled, I'm inside her with my fist- small heartbeat thuds my palm. the burning sac's Months, a constant snuffling at the trough; fawn/white belly swagged & pied with mud;-- I hose the pen each day (plashed spume of dust, the battered cobs)--that breeds frail bones into the gelding block, spent prayers raining squeals from rotten oak. |