Envoi What pig could himself deny A gently seasoned porky pie? The glistening splay of roasted snout The parslied porcine forefoot: Removed from life, from fat, from flesh Impartial blade made mince, mince, mince, Spread out among the crusts to taste Baked to melt, and melting licked . . . The silenced throat, the twining tail 1. Pig, I can no longer recall Why I move in this silent circle Toward incurious tomorrow From feast to truffled feast Lurching bellyfuls of lunch: From cottled prune To cuddled egg To fishy creamed and poached, Moving toward the unknown skewer Roasting unknown roasts. Pig pie never tastes the same In winter rain, in summer sun; Winter passed me yesterday Yet winter is to come. Memory marches backward Space flows out the door The mirror face is winking back At the face before; How we try to hang in time Stop the rhythm and the rhyme But the circle rolls us on Until we roll no more.

2. Pig, I rutted in prideful youth once, Pink and squirming I frolicked in mud and straw And knew the joys of trough. Yet I'm tired of my chewing jaw, The dark damp tongue, the eager teeth: I eat to live and live to die, So worm eats man and man eats pie While all the piggies wonder why They supplement the feast: An ancient tale of pig and sprout, The porky pudding, the appled snout (The apple you so liked to taste Now flavors you with prunish grace); What dimpled immortality Your fruited flesh becomes in me.

3. The pig parade is passing by Throatless spectres, eyeless eyes; Gravied growls from swinish jowls Assault me from my pie . . . Shall I hide my pork in honey? Or disguise with salty soy? Still you'd catch me gnawing on the brawny bones of boar As the everguileless lines of pig Prance through the butcher's door.

4. Pig, we're both roly-poly Till sliced down by time's blind butcher: Dismembered utterances ripple distance As these present time-wound words Like glistening pig-fat melt away. You did not know if, Unaware of subtler aspects Of your posture, walk, and talk, I overlooked your inbred woes Your persistent gaze from tottering toes, The plodding mule ploughing rows The fleet formicae to and fro Vain, vain in your consistencies . . . 5. But pig, Aha! Should you become grey for my brain Grub for my tum, Or should you simply stop and die Cease to sense, discharge from life, Feed first the raven, then the worm Metamorph to fecund soil Explode in silver fern, Then I would recall Your smallish tusk Your sixteen nipples so evenly placed Your ripe sow-dappled scent of musk Your steaming haunch Your appled face? Or would my portly pig-fed soul Be sucked through space from sound and light Where pig and poet glide together, Solundless through the night?