30-50 Feral Hogs Survey the Pandemic

as no rifles point toward them. For a moment
churches, gay bars, schools are empty
of all threat. The hogs take off together
like a family vacation. Someone lies
about the canals in Venice being shit-free.
The land is not returning to anyone.
The hogs don’t remember the Alamo.
The river where I counted ducks
cannot count the hogs. I only estimate
30-50 (why not 20-40?) by the way
hooves interrupt its steady stream.
Their cousins overseas are radioactive
because of an American bomb. This, too,
is a disease. This landscape,
quiet with sickness, does not fill
with feral hogs. The landfills are not
emptying themselves. The aquifer
is still being smothered by high rises.
Still, a smoker’s cough in the sky
seems to inch the sun closer.
The hogs don’t notice. They run
because the others are running.

Stephanie Lane Sutton was born in Detroit. She is the author of a flash fiction chapbook, Shiny Insect Sex (Bull City Press). Her work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, ANMLY, Black Warrior Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, and The Offing, among others. She received her MFA from the University of Miami.