This Pig I

This pig I live with really

does hover over much of

what I do and say it’s in

the room I lie in daily when

I try to tell myself the truth

about deceit or what I read

or just my being a jerk and lazy

pissy it brings to mind the swine

within and out of sight it’s like

a shadow in its knowing how

dark at heart I am in part

it loves the muck I’m often in

the sty and stink of me and my

it’s like a household deity now

whose name is mine to give and take

back in vain it’s black and beautifully

sketched by Baskin in fact as though

he’d thought it a holy beast of sorts

a sacred cow or Zen bull

someone was having trouble herding

its hooves delicate as a devil’s

prance cloven above the heaven

and hell of my head its law written

in red biblical letters says

for me it seems specifically—

Pig, poet, thou shalt not eat.