Pigs
Her idea of country:
Wordsworth or a magazine
cover of blue and white pottery.
The morning she tells me
there’s an odor like something dead,
I have to smile. It’s Roger’s
pigs I explain. The shoats fattening
in their confinement hutches.
But that smell!
Truth to tell, I don’t like it either
but it’s a question of compromise.
Roger helps me halter the colts.
Those pigs of his are putting
his son through college.
A rumor arises that a huge
hog operation is planned
just up the road. Manure lagoons.
She can only imagine. At the zoning
hearing, she raises her hand
to object saying the stench cannot be good
for anyone’s health, nevermind esthetics.
The hogman, red faced,gets up,
clasping his portfolio
and turns to snarl “Honey
where I come from that smell is money.”
She decides to complain
to the county board. Pig farmers
one and all, they grin and nod.
They’ll take it
under consideration.
—Joan Colby, Elgin, IL
