Like Pigs

 

Like Pigs

It’s Janice on the phone
from her sailboat near Madagascar
(background sound of waves slapping hull
half a planet distant). Her tenants
here on this side of the planet
have a stopped-up sink,
their own fault says Janice because
they live like pigs packing five kids
into that two-bedroom cottage
but I should fix it which is how
I meet freckly smiley Georgia
who is discretely nursing a blanketed babe
as she leads me to the one and only bathroom
where opening the sink cabinet I find
giant brown fungi in a pool of slime.

Georgia says Yikes!
Baby starts fussing
probably about the smell
like raccoon turd pudding.
I have to scrape out fungus,
run a snake through black goo,
then straighten the drain
which was never installed properly
causing the whole problem.

Georgia is stirring soup over a stove,
babe in arms like a copper cherub
while four kids of laddering ages
play kick the can. Tom the father
arrives in his old truck, joins the game.
Georgia calls to him
You done it for today?
Tom shouts back
I replaced a windshield wiper
on Bradley’s car, he don’t know.
Georgia explains to me Tom’s a mechanic,
performs a secret good deed each day.
It’s so simple, she says.

Back to the bathroom, quickly
I replace the crappy shower nozzle.  
I won’t ask.
Janice won’t pay.  
Like pigs we nurture, we bless.

…..

From my book Random Saints
First published in MOON magazine. Thank you Leslee Goodman, editor
Republished in Braided Way and nominated for Best of the Net. Thank you Laura Grace Wilder, editor.
Photo by Roy Buri