Our three-legged pig has been run over by a hay cart. I use my grandfather’s cleaver to cut the meat from the bone. Even the gristle and fat go into the great iron pot. The sizzle is like the sound of the locusts we eat. The dried vegetables we add look like pieces of shed skin. Gravy is the day’s gift. While we gnarled four squat in the dappled shade, the old woman sings, her voice rasp as an empty bag. The one-eared boy watches from a distance, his eyes glistening like grease.
—Robert Miltner
—from hotel utopia