A POEM by MIKE GALLAGHER

we could not believe it when they finally flew

—and how! o how they flew!

great sweeping Vs, evasive

maneuvers, pink angels swirling strange

shapes, splitting apart and coming back

together again in precise pink knots

pigs imagine that pigs

and flying too—we were so

foolish, guilty of imperfect prophecy and

having failed to consider the aerodynamics

of swine, so that many debts were paid, and

many pig promises made in haste fulfilled

pigs again and again pigs

and biblical pig swarms

laid shadows across the land

in rows of hole-punch-perfect ovals,

gliding, patrolling, surveilling in straight

lines, suffocating pig perfection

pigs always up there pigs

and weeks went by, still

pigs, still flying, grids of pigs, pigs

as a unit of measurement, either being born

spontaneous somewhere or the same ones

looping around over and over again

pigs circling clockwork pigs

and new religions formed,

pig religions, begging our swine

saviors to swoop down pigly and anoint us, while

the military devised plans of piglike cunning

to pluck down pigwise our portly captors

pigs anti-artillery gun pigs

and the pigs grew in

number, new uncountable densities

of pig, pig spacetime, swine swelling blocking

out the sun, volcanic pig winter knocking fighter

pilots from the eternal pig night

pigs oh god oh god pigs

and now came the infernal

oinking, oinking that cracked the

sky, oinking that swallowed the earth,

deafening, eardrum-shattering oinking

sending shockwaves out worlds over

pigs exterminating angels pigs

and then it was done.

the pigs flew off somewhere high

above, pig heaven, probably, and people wept and

made love and made promises to each other not

to make promises anymore and out

there the ether oinks always

pigs

(pigs)


Mike Gallagher (he/him) lives in the swamps of South Philadelphia, where he writes poetry, occasionally.

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A STORY by COREY MILLER

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THREE POEMS by INDIGO PALMER