hog maw

lil fish has two cats–a brother and a sister. she adopted them as kittens from the local cat shelter during covid. i was her reference. the boy cat is named shit bro. originally his name meant history bro, but as it turns out, shit is pronounced the same way as history in chinese, and he shat on himself a lot. he’s very fluffy. his little sister is called meimei–chinese for little sister. shit bro bullies meimei a lot. he eats more than her, weighs more than her, and enjoys pinning her to the floor, biting her ear as she mews pitifully.

once i brought my cat mimi over for a playdate. despite being half his size, she hissed at shit bro every time she saw him and rubbed herself all over the living room. apparently, he was so frightened that he didn’t return to the living room for a week. lil fish and i joked about how i should bring mimi over every once in awhile to teach shit bro a lesson. but then she decided against it. “it would probably just make him even worse to meimei after,” she said. a small chill ran down my spine.

last week, i was going to bring mimi over for another playdate. but meimei had recently returned from a trip to the hospital, and shit bro, upon finding foreign smells on her, was acting extra aggressive. so lil fish told me not to bring my cat. and though i am filled with indignance and anger upon her every story of shit bro’s abuse, all i see when i arrive is a chubby fluffy cat, whom i can’t help but kiss and coddle all the same. meanwhile, for the duration of my visit, meimei hid somewhere else.

on the first night of the last time i visited the farm it was so cold that a couple of the newborn lambs didn’t make it to the morning. j brought one that was barely holding on into the bathroom next to the garage. when he let n know, she said, exasperated ‘again?’ he grunted. ‘do you want me to take a look?’ j grunted again and headed to the living room.

i had never seen a baby lamb before. i poked my head in and saw the little thing laying on the bath mat, its eyes barely open. i gathered its knobbly limbs into my arms, and tucked its cold snout into my vest. it let out a bleating cry so sharp and loud i almost dropped it. when i asked what needed to be done, n said something about needing a heat lamp and colostrum, a type of milk supplement.

meanwhile, the family was making breakfast crepes in the kitchen. n scrambled eggs. fried sausages and made mimosas. j didn’t have any — he sat in front of the television lengthwise on the couch watching fox news and eating cheese puffs. meanwhile i sat in the bathroom holding the lamb ignoring my hunger pangs, both wondering why no one was coming with a heat lamp and thinking they know something i didn’t.

when i finally lay the lamb down and came in for some breakfast, asking casually about how to find a heat lamp, m laid a hand on my arm. ‘you’re -there- right now,’ she said, eyes full of sympathy. ‘we’ve all been there.’ i reassured her i would be perfectly fine if the lamb didn’t make it, but insisted that i wanted to try.

so n finished her crepe, downed her mimosa, and went across the road to look for the heat lamp. the dogs had been whining the whole time in their crates, so when i finally lay the little lamb in a box with the heat lamp, i let them out and took them on a little loop. by the time i returned, the lamb was dead.

this lamb was not the first to be claimed by winter. but the ground was frozen over, and none of the lambs who had been lost this season could be buried until the soil melted. i didn’t inquire further about where the dead lambs were kept, or how they would eventually be buried. but now that the snow has melted, even as it continues to fall — now that the plastic cups and used diapers formerly hidden are showing the white bits of themselves amidst soggy dirt and leftover strands of brown grass — i wonder if it’s time to put the lambs into the ground.

quarantine has led me to realize the chaotic power of household objects, bouncing me off the walls of my apartment. “clean us,” the dirty dishes flash. “the longer you wait the harder it gets.” “water us,” the plants chime. “also, we need to be repotted.” “feed me,” my cat intimates, rubbing against the pantry door and ignoring her still-full bowl of food. “remember me,” my grandmother’s face gleams at me in front of my desk, next to a photo of my now-dead dog. “also you should probably call me sometime.”

this might be what a home sounds like to a mother, that all-too-often one-person-stage-crew operating behind the set of domesticity. beginning to find myself entangled in the same psychic roots as those who continue to find it difficult to sit still, accept help, or seek solitude in their waning age — who continue taking the end-of-dinner cue, gathering the dishes over the heads of their well-muscled children, ignoring the chorus of complaints from their own bones’ ache, thinking, it keeps one young.

huffing and puffing
calf head emerged
squeezed between front hooves
thin tongue extended
not yet breathing
mother cow exhausted
two-headed being
farmer jumps in the pen
pulls the calf out
sticks fingers in nostrils
pulls mucus out
drags the wet calf in front of mother cow
rubs his hand in the slime coating the calf
sticks his hand in front of the mother
who licks it

the chemicals lock in
the body’s locked in
afterbirth still dangling in a sac from her ass
she scrambles to her feet
to cover her calf with more licks
calf blinking sleepily
beneath the hand and tongue
of farmer and cow
under the lights
circled by a crowd

what used to serve as a parking lot for the county fair has been converted into a residential block made of rows of identical blue and white houses, fresh paint job striking even in the dark. j drops us off at the door and m pays for our admission. tickets are $5 per person, and anyone above 62 gets in for free. glowing ferris wheel turns slowly in the distance. a large boat with egyptian death masks carved on either end swings in pendulous semicircles. a gator-shaped rollercoaster gleams, stall closed for the night. dunghill scents waft across the muggy summer eve.

they’ve stopped selling tickets to the rodeo and nobody lets any of us asian girls into the stadium. j comes in from the parking lot and easily cajoles our way in — he insists it’s because he had the gall to do the cajoling, m thinks it’s because we’re dressed like city kids, and s insists it’s because he’s a big-bellied white man. we sit among the wooden bleachers and look upon the wide patch of dirt, lit like a stadium. a girl rides her horse into the ring from stage left. they run tight circles around two laterally placed barrels, and a loop around a third one at the end of the arena. the horse speeds up on the way back out. the girl’s hat falls off, blonde braids flapping behind her head like little flags. another girl&horse shoot out a few seconds later. then another, and another, all running the same pattern, announcer calling out their times to audience applause.

then come the boys on their bulls. boy&bull explode from the stalls on stage right, boy’s hand raised, spine arching and snapping. boy falls off, rolling and sprinting away from the ferociously bucking bull. in between acts, the rodeo clown dons a fat chicken suit and dances to the black eyed peas. each round takes a lot of setup and no one lasts very long. later j notes that the bulls seemed seasoned and the boys still green. he also notes that the navy kung fu shirt i wore with the mandarin buttons “looks like what the coolies used to wear in chinatown.” he’s tickled to think city kids now find it cool. i’m making it cool, i think loudly in his general direction. but the next day m tells me not to wear the shirt, and i obey.

learn that marigolds keep insects away, and asiatic dayflowers are considered weeds. ran a spear tipped like a flat-head screwdriver through the crevices of the driveway and power-washed. dogs barking maniacally through the door at the stream of water. let them out. feifei on hind legs. seph biting at the water and yelping from the pain, only to compulsively return for the punishment of the next jet stream. herd the dogs back into the mud room. on hands and knees, fingers in crevices, knuckles rubbing raw on the stone. small holes in the fingertips of the gardening gloves. find a small bat body decomposing on a drain, sweet rot mixing with the sharp scent of uprooted weeds. cover the body with some dirt & scoop the maggot-home into my gloved hand. feel the worms moving on my palm as i walk them to the grove where i placed the live bat two days ago. back to the weeds. remember the reflective hesitance with which i pulled them on a cloudy afternoon a few days ago. replaced with a frantic urgency under the baking sun. every timid spot of green a gordian knot upon which to prove the stubborn spear of my perseverance. “it don’t have to be perfect,” j quips as he walks past. but it does, i think back loudly, hacking at roots. it’s about me now. i work as if it’s my last chance and the restored order will last forever. as if a battle against the weeds could be won. power-wash the stones from their cover of black dirt to a substratum of green moss and finally to a speckled whiteness that dims as waters dry and dirts resettle. finally call it quits as the shadows begin to lengthen, fingers numb and weak, a third of the stone path around the house still to go. sit on the wooden slats of an untethered flatbed truck and observe the cows, trees filtering the late-afternoon sun. bessie keeps chasing the small white heifer away from the tub of corn. so the new cow waits until the others finish before approaching, thin cow tail wagging alone. walk back to the house & take a bath. m scolds me for doing too much. j starts a fire. a brings bourbon. s requests more spanish songs. we sit round the flames beneath the night sky aglow with the half circle of a waxing moon.

wake to a soft and drizzly morning. fried eggs with toast. roam the grounds with a mug of honeyed coffee. that lightning creates nitrogen which causes the plants to glow & grow. a good time to plant seedlings. sweep the covered porch on the second floor. let the dogs out when the chickens were still out. pull rocky away from the coop. play frisbee with sephiroth. dogs and chickens convene peacefully around my feet. power-wash the porch. barn swallow poop streaming off the ledge. sometimes spraying into my face. leftovers for lunch. pull more weeds. at niemeyer’s livestock auction. lambs wail “meh” at each other from across the barn. cows huff quietly. pigs spoon. the dusty musky smell of animals in hay. the show starts. a man herds animals in and around and out with a shaker stick shaped like a big spring onion. r calls out pounds and prices. cows pace. one shits. goats pause warily in corners and dart. stick man pounces upon sold sheep, smearing a line of lime green powder on their woolen backs. a herd of black pigs swarm. into the stage-pen for an audience sitting in a small half-circular stadium through a sliding door, and out onto a weighing scale bought in 1956. children climbing the staired benches. j buys 3 cows for the farm and all of the pigs for t&j’s. said they’re “harder than american pigs to process with all their bristly fur–but they’re below market price, and sausage is sausage.” drive back. take a few beers to a century-old farmhouse with s & a uke. sing for the cows.

drive out to the meatpacking facility co-founded by the j of t&j’s. stop at a starbucks in a target for some coffee on the way. cross multiple abandoned railroads still marked off with road signs. walk into t&j’s, past the grocery store section and behind the retail butcher’s counter. one man runs some hind legs through a meat saw. “this is making me hungry,” quips another as he passes by, cradling a skinned goat. its red streaked face pterodactyl-like in its sharp earlessness. rooms full of eviscerated pigs hanging from hooks in orderly loops. like collared shirts at a dry cleaner’s. trash can full of pig heads. another full of intestines, stomachs, and lungs. pig lungs are prohibited from being processed in the US. a table of ribcages. a shelf of hearts. a pen of pigs sleeping and grunting and squeezing around each other. a metal funnel for catching the blood spurting from the throat. nondescript mosses of tissue speckled across a wet floor. a single flame alight for singeing stubborn furs. a few pigs hanging with their intestines blooming from their stomachs. like a bouquet of pink and gray balloon-flowers. a bucket of chlorine. a metal door as tall as the room. a sticker outside the back office that reads “i love animals, they’re delicious!” with a picture of the virgin mary and baby jesus pinned on top. chinese yellow pages. a calendar put out by global electronic services inc. july features a balding man in a green polo changing the o-rings of a hydraulic unit.

stop by jimmy johns for a late lunch. unable to refrain from getting the turkey bacon sub. drive back through the edenic farm grounds to the castle-like house and wolf down the sandwich. spend the afternoon uprooting clovers grass and dandelions from stone crevices, evicting ants and worms. stuff my face with watermelon. wink at the baby. walk up to the hobbit hill. swat at mosquitos. sing for the trees. croon at the cows. they walk with me from the fence to the house. heat up leftover lasagna. eat it alone in the kitchen. silently thank m for making it vegetarian.

start the day harvesting the mint. they carry the most oils right before blooming. pause in the middle to sweep up a broken mirror, and again to carry a baby bat from the house into the woods, found in the chimney. fill four heaping baskets. carry two inside. coax the chickens back into the coop. let the dogs out. play fetch with the frisbee. stir fry veggies for fellow kitchen putterers m & s. find an inchworm, two caterpillars, and a tiny frog in the mint. stripping and cleaning the mint takes all afternoon. throw most of it away.

play some piano for the fussing baby. let the dogs out again. the chickens laid eggs. freshly laid eggs don’t have to be refrigerated if you don’t wash them, protected by a natural bloom. visit billy the goat, some horses, and the pigs. piggy rubbed all over my legs when we met. go to the cedar lake farmer’s market. a trump 2024 sign “save america again!” on the way. buy a leather bracelet. sit by the lake. wink at some children. back to the house for dinner. mistake leeks for green onions. chinese catfish with mushrooms steamed in eggs. scratch some cow heads. out to the ‘hobbit hill’ built for sledding between the house and the soybean fields. past the plot meant for asparagus, before the pond meant for fishing. draw a wide circle with bug spray. sit there til sundown, singing.

there is the farm in theory, and there is the farm in reality.

in theory, the farm is beautiful. green rolling hills with blonde wheat streaks aglow in the golden sun.

in theory, the cows are peaceful. lovely, slow, and dumb.

in reality, the cows move in jerky movements, whipping their necks at the flies constantly crowding on the bristly small of their backs and the dark wrinkles in the corner of their eyes.

in reality, i cannot stay long greeting the cows or admiring the wheat, for i too am being eaten alive.