Pig Eyes

A bridge arches and I
descend to where the pink
eyes of a pig stare without blinking

at mine, which are blue, while
others, like a wall of brown,
follow my every move. The rotating pig's

burning flesh smells like mine spinning
atop a stake, like steaming hot-top
laid on a hundred-degree day. In the market

a man in a stained Dallas Cowboy hat speaks
to my wife who cannot answer him; he thinks
she is refusing and storms off. Footsteps

click and tap on the floor and the rhythmic sounds
of a language not my own hums tranquilly
the way locusts do at night in the country. But

I'm leery here, a blue-eyed stranger
looking at the pale pink eyes of a pig
and holding the hand of a brown-eyed

dark-skinned woman while men
speaking a language I don't know
look at me and nod to one another.

J.R. Corrigan