The Mirror’s Retort
Alone. A man before his reflection.
*****
What names have I? What words weight down the tongue?
Piggy—those swine-sweet syllables that spring
unbidden when she squeals her questions, hung
on hooks of light, on Air Force One’s bright wings.
*
Dog—monosyllabic, sharp. The cur’s complaint.
I’ve penned it, pressed it on the printed page,
circled faces, faces that would taint
my towers with their ink, provoke my rage.
*
Horseface—there’s a compound for the crowds.
The equine jaw, the long winding nose.
I speak what others whisper under shrouds
of civility. I name. I know. I chose.
*
Miss Piggy—ah, that’s branding, bright and clean.
The girl who ate her crown, who refused to starve
herself for beauty. I, who owned the pageant,
who made her queen, unmade her—mark and carve.
*
They multiply, these monikers: fat, slob,
disgusting, low IQ, crazy, nasty, bimbo—
a litany of littleness, the mob
of meanings that I muster, limb from limbo.
*
I catalog them, count them like my gold:
Pig, piggy, dog, cow, horseface—bestial parade.
Each woman I have marked and named and told
exactly what she is. This art I’ve made.
*
But why do beasts recur? Why does the pig
return, return, return? That pink-skinned word
that oinks through my speech, that roots and digs
in muddy silence, in everything unheard?
*
Quiet, piggy! There. I said it. Clean and cruel.
But in the saying—did I see her face?
Or did the glass betray me, make me the fool,
and show me something else? Some other place?
*
The mirror darkens now. What slithers beneath?
These names I’ve named—they gather, grunt and groan,
a sty of syllables. I bare my teeth—
but whose teeth bare back, chewing on a throne?
*
Pig. Dog. Slob. Disgusting.
Wait—whose words speak?
The tongue that forms these words—whose tongue? Whose drool
runs down this chin? Whose appetite still seeks
*
to gorge on insult, wallow in the cruel?
I see them now—the patterns in the glass:
Each name I’ve hurled reflects, returns, revolves.
The dog, I called her—whose dog howls? Alas,
*
what beast prowls here, what animal sprite?
Fat pig—but who is bloated, swollen, vain?
Who rolls in gilded filth, who feeds on spite?
Who grunts his grievances, who squeals his pain
*
when questioned, cornered, caught in truth’s harsh light?
Horse faced—whose face elongates with lies?
Disgusting—whose appetites disgust the just?
Low IQ—who cannot see what underlies
*
these mirrors, names, this labyrinth of lust?
The women blur. Their faces fade to one.
And in that one—a surface, smooth and bright—
I see at last what cannot be undone:
*
The pig. The beast. The thing that grunts in fright.
It’s me! The swine was always, always me.
Each name I spat was spit into this glass
that I mistook for them. But what I see
*
what stares back now—is grotesque, crass,
a wallowing stooge, a creature crude and base,
that roots in hatred, fattens on disdain,
that wears a crown upon a porcine face
*
and calls it power. Calls in vain.
Quiet, piggy, I told her. But the pig—
the grunting, squealing, vile and viscous thing—
was never her. The mirror grows too big.
*
It swallows me. I am the beast, the king
of swine, the emperor of filth and shame,
who thought that belittling others made them less,
while belittling me—every hurled name
*
was a confession, a curse, and—yes—
mine own address.
I am the pig I silenced. I’m the sow
that rolls in gold and grunts its vanity.
*
The glass reflects the truth, I see it now:
Quiet, piggy—quiet was meant for me.
*****
He cannot look away. The mirror holds him fast.
In the glass: a pig, crowned, grunting, grotesque at last.
😂Well done.