Pork-Adjacent (Piggin' on a Sunday Afternoon)

He opens and closes his hammy fist with a revolting inelegance
-a vain attempt to scratch his brow with a sausage-like pinkie.
Sinking lower into his seat, his amorphous form spills over the armrest and onto my
forearm-
"Lady She Sure", he fumbles to utter, leaning over
to his wife before returning to rest
—expressionless


The curtain rises on a cohort of young Chinese women in undulating silk finery,
Flapping feathered fans in synchronization with the meticulous grace of
Ten Thousand Hours spent,
the color of spring's first marigold.
Before the resplendence of their restrained, poetic movement
has a chance to settle, billowing and cascading onto the orchestra in the pit
and the audience below–
I make out his beady eyes, blind to this.
Flitting about in the dim theater–
As if to
defile
pick apart
and ravage all at once before—


The performance is over.


He nods off as the applause dies,
Grotesque,
Satiated.
And I-
am in reprieve, for now.