The Pencil

I write this with a pencil—
Time-tested technology.
Honoring the common utensil
Is my task of creative ecology.

Yet what currently runs deeper through my blood and out my hand
is an ode for—
Pork.

You see, here in Africa, it’s not so much the head but the belly that rules the fork.
We hear the pigs squeal, we smell them next door.
We watch them slosh in the mud before we buy them at the store.
Walking to market we see those same swine cut up.
Their insides now out, flies flocking for yuck.
No more squeals we hear, but the meat’s mighty fine.

The other white meat?
Baby, it’s mine.

April Murdock
20 May 2007