Ruth Sabath Rosenthal

SWINE

Watching a co-worker of mine
approach the candy machine,
licking his chops, while two sidekicks,
already there, appear to be
pitching something
to a cornered shrinking violet,

memory of my previous job
(where a lout stuck his snout
in my affairs & made me
the butt of ridicule) swells
an old lump in my throat.

On the brink of heaving my lunch
at the pigs, a more therapeutic urge
curtails that: I'll grill hotdogs for dinner
& swill down a pint or two
while the wieners reach perfection—
just on the verge of char.


Ruth reads her "Swine":



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Ruth confesses: "In one of my past poetry work-shopping classes, the instructor brought in several poems for reading, and one was Elizabeth Bishop’s 'A Prodigal'. The poems were meant as inspiration for a class assignment, but once home, (and likely hungry, as the class started at 6:00 P.M. and I always had dinner after) I thought of "pigs" and then of "swine" and, thus, my poem evolved."

RUTH SABATH ROSENTHAL is a New York poet, well published in literary journals and poetry anthologies throughout the U.S. and also in Canada, Israel, India, Romania, and the U.K. In 2006, Ruth’s poem "on yet another birthday" was nominated for a Pushcart prize. Ruth has a book of poems Facing Home and Beyond that can be purchased from amazon.com; barnesandnoble.com; or directly from Ruth, via e-mail: RUTHSPOEMS at AOL dot COM. She also has poetry book forthcoming titled little, but by no means small. For more about Ruth, please feel free to Google her, and visit websites: www.ruthsabathrosenthal.moonfruit.com, www.pw.org/content/ruth_sabath_rosenthal, www.poetryvlog.com/ruthsabathrosenthal.