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.