Philosopher Orders Crispy Pork Poem by Heather McHugh

I love him so, this creature I pray
was treated kindly. I will pay
as much as pig-lovers see fit

to guarantee him that. As for his fat,
I’d give up years yes years of my
own life for such

a gulpable semblable.
(My life! Such as it is! This
liberality of leaves! The world

won’t need those seventeen more
poems, after all, there being
so few subjects to be treated. Three

if by subject we mean anyone
submitted to another’s
will. Two if by subject we mean

topic. One if by death we wind up
meaning love. And none if a subject
must entail

the curlicue’s indulgence of itself.)