We were loading a boar, a goddam mean big sonofabitch and he jumped out of the
pickup four times and tore out my stockracks and rooted me in the stomach and I 
fell down and he bit John on the knee and he thought it was broken and so did I 
and the boar stood over in the far corner of the pen and watched us and John and I 
just sat there tired and Jan laughed and brought us a beer and I said, "John it aint 
worth it, nothing's going right and I'm feeling half dead and haven't wrote a poem in ages 
and I'm ready to quit it all," and John said, "shit, young feller, you aint got 
started yet and the reason's cause you trying to do it outside yourself and aint 
looking in and if you wanna by god write pomes you gotta write pomes about 
what you know and not about the rest and you can write about pigs and that boar 
and Jan and you and me and the rest and there aint no way you're gonna quit," and 
we drank beer and smoked, all three of us, and finally loaded that mean bastard 
and drove home and unloaded him and he bit me again and I went in the house 
and got out my paper and pencils and started writing and found out John he was 
right.

From The Porcine Canticles by David Lee. Copyright 2004 David Lee. Used by permission of Copper Canyon Press. All rights reserved.