The Sow

knows she is dying as colour drains from her sty - rusted bolts bleed ruby, grass and feed shudder like memory - as if this present moment has already evaporated. Breaths long, precious. Now a spasm a contortion between shoulder blades a squeal as a nub something sharp something new forces its way out piercing tough bristles as piglets run to fences as hollow bone spins out from air - she lifts away from mud and straw, the first time in days. Her cries now ecstatic. Clouds twitch with static potential. A prevalent taste of burnt solder. Looking to the comfort of a monochrome sky, she unclenches fresh sinew and hovers just above her trough, opens translucent wings- each feather containing all the sapphire all the emerald the world has lost all the shimmer slick of a petrol spill and she falls up