Thursday, April 27, 2017

Sty-Released, Declined to Quit Their Pavements of Gravel and Shit












THE INVENTION OF PIGS

Les Murray

Come our one great bushfire
pigs, sty-released, declined to quit
their pavements of gravel and shit.
Other beasts ran headlong, whipping

off with genitals pinched high.
Human mothers taught their infants creek-dipping.
Fathers galloped, gale-blown blaze stripping
grass at their heels and on by

too swift to ignite any houses.
One horse baked in a tin shed,
naked poultry lay about dead
having been plucked in mid flight

but where pigs had huddled
only fuzzy white hoofprints led
upwind over black, B B B
and none stayed feral in our region.