I thought it was a dog at first,
but then the damn thing actually
stopped long enough for me
to realize that I was looking at one of those
demonic, bigger-than-hell-and-Vegas-put-together
black hogs that no one ever seems to notice.

You’ve never seen people
so adapt at letting go of the dead.

Candles are only lit behind closed doors.

Nobody complains. No one confesses to a broken heart
when the missing turn up in Bonaventure Cemetery
or the quiet part of River street. Faces somewhere
in the next world and arms all singular and lonesome as though
they’ll suddenly make their way towards a payphone
when the tourists stop weeping and taking pictures.

The idea is that you just accept the arrangement
or go to art school somewhere else.

I don’t go to art school. The best I’ve been able to do
is a little acting, fifty thousand scary words on the book,
gratitude at waking up with the woman I love each morning
and a few stand-up comedy engagements where the crowds
laughed too hard and threw handfuls of boiled peanuts on the stage.

I was at Bonaventure, of course, when I ran into that black hog.
Not sure what I was doing there. Probably just taking pictures
and thinking about those little graves with only a year or two
between the start and finish.

The cold air was in the middle of arguing
that it was necessary to sweep away the old
and make way for the new
when I first saw that hog run past me
about a hundred feet away.

Flowers at a fresh grave laid down
their arms and best intentions when that black hog
stopped about twenty feet in front of me
as I was getting ready to leave.

I can’t tell you what he was thinking
and if he debated about my life. It was certainly
in his teeth at that point. I can’t run very far
or very fast. I can only fight for my life for so long.

We stared at each other for a while.
I thought about February taking too long
to come by to change the light bulb on my front porch
and swore three times in a row
that I could hear more of those hogs talking my life over.

The hog didn’t get any closer.
He didn’t make a move or a noise.
Instead he just turned and ran off past some
graves that were used to that kind of thing.

There was no nervous breakdown.

I went home,
kissed her before I could even close the door
and fixed a good enough drink in the kitchen.

I thought again about February
and only scarcely had the rest of the day
on my mind.

01/22/2010

Posted on 01/22/2010
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