The Sow Speaks to Noah
& what should I think of this, Mercy in a near month
languishing on a boat gone nowhere?
2The tusk & musk of livestock, gassy camels, chickens
that flick wet flecks of shit, giraffes & they long necks forever
knockin’ somebody flat on they asses—
3Never mind the sheep bleatin’ all night. & that
somebody stay watchin’ me piss, eat, or sleep, remindin’ me
that I’m the voice of a generation—
4As if that should make me humble. As if that might
make me forget that the only sky you’ve given me is a puddle
snagged on the sharp edge of candlelight.
2 It can’t be a journey that takes you from home & never gives
you back—
2Is it a gift that I’ve survived to send my kids to
slaughter? Better home is the mouth of their mother.
3Yes, I will eat my children before I let their buttocks
butter into fatback—better to boar, gore through the neck’s soft
meat. Unseed my children, chestnuts rendered free, their spirits
you can’t digest.
3 & this ain’t the last flood, Noah.
Your generations drown my kin in white noise daily.
2But did you know a pig can swim for miles if it gotta?
3& I breed often, turn my whole ass out to open ocean,
kick a tremolo of waves behind—
my whole brood finna wash this planet.
4 Maidens of mud, when the water done makin’ slop of the earth,
we’ll root in raw dung. Kick wherever our pink hooves please.
Outnumber the men who penned us here.
2Feed till our bellies bulge into boulders—be too large
for any hook to hold us.
