Operation Blessing

In 1978 the pigs of Haiti were diagnosed with Asian Swine Flu

and were eradicated. The repopulation program had mixed results.

Good God, who has ears to hear, we are being blessed

again as for centuries we have been so blessed,

so often relieved of the burdens of freedom,

and now of our pigs, who were rude, necessary

and blessed. They were our banks, our goods, our ancestors,

with snouts like ploughs and dung rich and robust

like the coffee we grew before we became blessed.

Now we are further blessed with these useless Iowan

beasts, these princes à quatre pieds whose empty breasts

and soft stomachs shrivel in our yards, whose high heels

balk at our tough scrub, who eat only wheat-based

vitamin-supplemented better-than-we-eat food,

whose thin skin blisters and burns in the Creole sun.

Of all our blessings, good God, this has been the best.