Ken Stone: Pig Killers
Pig Killers
(Stroud, 1890)
A photographer squeezed a sovereign
from a Baptist farmer rarely given to whim or pride.
They were pig killing and the photograph a century on
shows them pausing at their work.
One looks like a man who had confirmed
his face in a pool, shattered it to drink,
and hurried on. Now he’d glimpse timelessness
contrived by a conjuring lens.
He sensed no contradiction with the meek and mild.
Baptists might disdain to dance, yet slaughter flocks;
salt bacon and plump winter ham.
With nonchalance of a disbeliever,
a younger man stands at the scalding tub,
his knife glints at his hip, but his vest
is too tailored for stabbing and scraping.
He mirrored himself in a drop-slab hut
for this created moment.
A final sow wanes in its blood wallow,
and another, sprawled and shaven on the slab,
threatens to twitch and smudge the scene’s composure.
Children are transfixed in Sunday best,
and the interrupted wife, baker of crackled…
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