by Kelly Madigan

The neighbor calls
about the feral swine he killed,
tells us that in the half light
he first thought it was a calf, then,
because of the way it was moving, a bear.
Says it took five shots to drop it. It’s extra dark
in the field by the time we’ve come to extract samples
for the state research lab, but our headlamps
reveal him, on his side, covered in wiry bristles.
His feet are off the ground, so I count
four toes on each stubby leg. It’s twice my size,
tusked, eyes closed. I put my boot next to it
to shoot a photo, for size. We’ll bring
the samples home, and keep them cool until
they can be delivered.

The neighbor has lived here
a long time but can’t remember a wild boar
in this area, ever. He points out
the places in the field disturbed by the animal.

When the wildlife biologist cuts
open the heart to retrieve the liquid sample
the protocol requires, I ask him, and the neighbor,
if they remember pigs’ hearts being placed
in humans, and they do, and they note this heart
is smaller than they might’ve guessed, the first
any of us has seen, and all three of us
are staring at it, in a black field near a pack
of very vocal coyotes. And I’m thinking
of my dad, and his damaged heart,
how he wanted to save enough money
to pay for a transplant himself
if insurance denied it.

In the end he wasn’t
a candidate, and I can’t recall now
why they used pigs’ hearts in people
or if they still do, and I’m in this field
with two men, one holding the heart—
my pledge, my vow maker—the other
part neighbor, part stranger, and the pig
splayed open, alive and wild an hour ago,
every last one of us with a heart
that will eventually give way,
curious and marveling, mortal.

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NB: Click on the title to open a page which contains an audio version of today’s poem.