The Barren Gilt

The woman will not explain away
her farm-fed fat
or forgetfulness. She is losing
more and more.
Not fat. There is genius
in forgetting.
No accolades. No profit.

The gilt was barren. Huge.
Soon to slaughter.

If enough space,
if enough
is made in the mind,

in the freezer,

poems don’t care
to be written.
Nor do her strong hands,
thinking Other
against her own fat, care.

The farmer said she went willingly.
No fuss but from the boar.

Something—what?—
remembers
belonging to another body.
No padding
under that once-skin.
She forgets. Goes willingly.

2015