What Mr. Pig Did
After Paula Rego   Prince Pig and his First Bride     2006
 
Mr. Pig modelling his best Sunday suit of farmyard smells,
flees from the cook’s cleaver to find himself a sow.

This snorty, stinky, porker seeks a succulent female
but finds a golden version of that wonderland Alice

losing herself to the canopy of stars expanding above,
eyes wide, mouth shut. She is clever, passes off her repulsion

as the chill she always feels inside and out, knowing
his simple brain will believe her. His loathsome heaviness

begins a performance of sucking and licking, filthy trotters
kicking hard as a Channel swimmer. He fumbles over the hump

and bowl of her, fearful tusks moving closer to steal ludicrous kisses
that snouty lips can hardly manage. And then that little kettle squeal

like cats fighting in the garden late at night is almost more
than she can bear. They will stay tangled like this until it’s over

or until Alice draws a butcher’s knife from beneath her galaxy
of foaming petticoats      waits for blood to cool, clot, coagulate.

Tina Cole has three published pamphlets, I Almost Knew You, (2018), Forged/ Yaffle Press, (2021) and What it Was/ Mark Time Books (2023). Her published poems have appeared in many U.K. magazines, one in The Guardian newspaper and in several poetry collections. She is also a past winner of a number of national poetry competitions 2010 – 2023. She completed an M.A. in creative writing at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2024.