Quiet, Piggy
Though the slur also concerns chickens
and eggs and which came first—
did the master create the puppet
or the puppet the master?
suppose, for instance, one posits
an argument for compassion—
the bare minimum, as in let’s not
disappear people and torture families
a few crumbs under the table
hardly enough for a dog and a widow—
let’s not torment the targeted
and call it Jesus
we’re not talking gray areas
but a nod to simple human dignity—
a turn away from the evil described
in the diaries of hidden children
yet, take these words from social media
posted two days before quiet, piggy—
two days before an impotent leader
failed again to control his impulses:
“call the thought police bitch—
cmon fat stupid cat lady call—
where are you faddy—
we are not in Europe pig—”
look, I follow Jesus most Sundays
and try a bit the rest of the week—
it seems clear, though, that even Jesus
was particularly hard on pigs
I wonder if on the other side of that veil
he regrets his take on swine—
if today he’d preach about casting
your pearls before, say, pedophiles
I wonder if given half a chance
he might change the narrative—
and instead of sending the demons
into the companionable pig
he’d return them to the people
drowning us in a sea of atrocities
American Pie
I
our celebration was in full swing
that summer of ’76—colonial reenactments, patriot quarters,
tricorn hats, and Liberty Bell trinkets as ubiquitous
as the Bicentennial flags that lined
the streets
I was thirteen and late in the evenings
would lace up my shoes and jog down a quiet Main Street
turning around precisely at the towering
courthouse with its “colossal,”
(as they
described it) Ionic portico and modillion
blocks on a projecting bay, with its pilasters and pavilions,
its frieze and terra cotta, its balustraded parapet
and the central cartouche-
relief
In those days, though, perspective was simpler for me
and I thought of the courthouse as a giant nightlight, gleaming,
golden, even when the moon turned from earth
even when a coming storm rumbled
at the county line
I did not know then that the Klan
had once gathered near its steps to murder kidnapped men
and had twisted their own lies so completely
that the next generations
of whiteness
would be proud of these knightly ancestors,
would weave a world so devoid of truth that nazis would
study the lies with a degree of admiration leading
to emulation, though even they were careful
to be less obvious
I ran on between steamy ghosts lingering
in those nights where much had been forgotten—
where much would remain buried—
a generation lost in grift
where Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost drove their Beamers
to Pentecost. And good ole boys were serving rumors and lies,
certain this was the day memory would die,
this was the day our souls
would die
II
They threw a party at 250,
though the president sent both his regards and a rerun
of himself reading scripture—
he had a golf date
at the club,
the one he owns, one of the sixteen, seventeen,
perhaps nineteen he owns, who still counts these things?
All named for him, all branded by the name,
all branded for eternity,
a generation lost
His supporters will understand his absence
or will eagerly look the other way and make their excuses.
Besides, they will see the replay, won’t they?
of what we’re not certain,
a give-me putt
on the back nine, a card trick in a back room,
the Joker trumping the queen—trump suits, selected suits,
chosen suits, the Jack is high but what’s the bid . . .
because, and know this, we all submit
to the highest bid
Or perhaps we’ll see him staring down
from that double screen divided by the white cross,
the cross within the Greek façade, the one
that points to Washington’s monument,
nearly melds with the monument,
the entire scene filled with such phallic overplay
that the weary and wrinkled nun asks the question she must:
is the crowd aroused by religious passion
or by a Joker planning
a grand slam?
I, too, watch him on that stage . . . watch that video
of him on that stage . . . watch that video of him on that stage
at the façade . . . though the man himself
was teeing off at a club splattered
with his name
On that screen the wounded king attempts
ancient words that condemn him, hiding one injured hand
with the other, both weighing heavily
on the gold-leafed pages
of an open Bible
He forces out every word, twisting his face,
coiling his lips, huffing and puffing until he looks contorted
and confused and barely hanging on in a realm
beyond him, beyond his ability
to comprehend
And he blew and he blew and he blew
the house down and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
cannot put that house back together again
and we spin and we spin and we spin
that Bible for gold
Come closer to bed, child,
so grandmother can see you, what a tender young thing,
be best, be best, my child, so I can eat you
and we run and we run through
the moonless night
BIO: Darlene O’Dell is the author of The Story of the Philadelphia Eleven (Church Pub, 2nd ed 2024), Sites of Southern Memory: The Autobiographies of Katharine Du Pre Lumpkin, Lillian Smith, and Pauli Murray (UVA Press, 2001), the e-chapbooks Raised in the World of Everyday Poets (Yavanika Press, 2023), Main Street (Yavanika Press, 2025), and Requiem for Lewis (forthcoming in 2027, co-winner of the Snapshot Press eChapbook Award 2026). Her essays and poems have appeared in National Catholic Reporter, Patheos, Presence, Modern Haiku, Sonic Boom, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Wales Haiku Journal, among others, and her haibun and haiga have been chosen for Contemporary Haibun’s annual publication of the year’s outstanding haibun in English. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina.
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