Pig

Inside the dark, hot potbelly

of my uncomfortable mother,

 

I stirred in pink au jus. In salty

amnio, I grew round, delicious

 

and thick. My silky ears pickled.

My knuckles and cloven hooves

 

prickled with finicky hungers.

All new senses of me glorious

 

tongues budding and licking.

I crackled to life and I kicked her

 

beneath the floating ribs: Eat,

eat, Woman! Eat! But she halved

 

grapefruits. She hard boiled eggs.

She sipped thin, bitter black coffee

 

with no sweet cream. Pained

by the weight of me, she signed

 

her pregnancy photos in shame.

“Don’t I look terrible?” she asked

 

the world. She decided early on

to name me, Fat—an inside joke

 

between her and my father.

And he agreed.

 
 
 

Tammy Robacker is a Hedgebrook writer-in-residence. She won the 2015 Keystone Chapbook Prize for her manuscript, 'R'. Her second poetry book Villain Songs is forthcoming with ELJ Publications in 2016. Tammy published her first collection of poetry, The Vicissitudes, in 2009 (Pearle Publications). Tammy's poetry has appeared in Menacing Hedge, Chiron Review, VoiceCatcher, Duende, So to Speak, Crab Creek Review, WomenArts, and Up the Staircase Quarterly. Currently enrolled in the Rainier Writing Workshop MFA program in Creative Writing at Pacific Lutheran University, Tammy lives in Oregon with her fiance. www.tammyrobacker.com