ANOTHER PIG-KNUCKLE-MOTHER POEM

by John Repp

 

 

Mountain down to damp emerald
                                    moss, wind-bent hemlock,
                        fragrant duff under tent floor,
fog the metronomic gusts fail to dissolve, we break

out supper—mine lost to memory,
                                    Ted’s pickled herring he gulps
                        like a seal, the reek
& smacking & cross-eyed, lip-licking

contemplation settling me down
                                    at the formica table cleared
                        of supper, dishes on the rack,
batch of iced tea brewing, lemons cut,

sugar crock lifted down, me at my place
                                    for reasons long vanished,
                        my mother with a jar of pigs’ knuckles—
not feet, though feet there were in the clear juice,

skin, too, kin to the well-fattened folds
                                    at my joints—between her planted
                        elbows, each knuckle brought
to her precise teeth, subjected to her pitiless gaze,

gnawed white, then dropped on a plate—but gnawed
                                    won’t do, nothing will, search long
                        as I may for what her mouth did
with that embalmed meat, that brined cartilage,

never mind the sound of it—teeth-on-slippery-not-
                                    quite-bone, sound I hear
                        deeper than the sleeting wind,
the stoned, gobbling friend, the whup-whup

of the blue nylon under which we’ll sleep
                                     till dawn & hunger drive us down
                         to where we live—for now, anyway,
breakfast almost a guarantee.

 

 

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