Pig-In-A-Blanket

By Matthew Rohrer b. 1970 Matthew Rohrer

I wake up, bound tightly.

A warm, valerian smell cascades

to my palate. I can only move

my eyelids and toes.

Heat sits impishly on my chest,

at my throat, curtains of it brushing against me.

Panic creeps out of my armpits.

I can only move my eyelids and toes,

and this constant fluttering

lulls me to sleep.

I awake late and move like a bee

through the apartment,

from station to station

from the blue flame

to the shimmering disc.

From the stairs to the street,

to the grocery store.

To the meat aisle. To the cocktail wieners.

To make pigs-in-a-blanket,

to share them with friends.

To sink into bed, to bind myself

tightly in blankets, to flutter off into sleep,

and then on past sleep,

to be carried by admirers across a wooden bridge.

Later I will burn this bridge.

Matthew Rohrer, “Pig-In-A-Blanket” from Satellite. Copyright © 2001 by Matthew Rohrer. Reprinted by permission of Wave Books.

Source: Satellite (Wave Books, 2001)

Biography

Matthew Rohrer was born in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and raised in Oklahoma. He earned his MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. His first collection, A Hummock in the Malookas (1995), was selected by Mary Oliver for the National Poetry Series. He is the author of Satellite (2001), A Green Light (2004), Rise Up (2007), They All Seemed Asleep (2008), and A Plate of Chicken (2009). Destroyer and Preserver (2011). He has . . .

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