Family Bristle

Jim LaVilla-Havelin  

September 15, 2024

through a hole in the fence they came

a hole their snouts had pried wide,

and bumped their bulk through it

ever-widening, came

the family of wild boars

crashing they were, at least through  the fence

the mama, the papa, and many small boars, too

and uncles and cousins, all bristle and snout

all snuffled about 

middle of the night, awakened by the sound

of swish rustle in fallen leaves – saw shadowy

shapes in the security light –  went from my bed

to the back porch

to find twenty or thirty 

boars gawking squint-eyed 

facing me, like an audience at a family entertainment

until I rattled and yelled and racketed them into a panic

and they fled – back into the meadow

and back to the fence, and back through the hole

they had made in the fence –

the mamas and papas and babies and cousins,

the aunts and the uncles and some stray boars

seeking the solace of family, and finding, in fleeing,

bristles catching on fencing, the littlest boars needing

butting their butts, to make it tumbling out and away.

and if doctor seuss isn’t hovering here, in this story of boars

and the backyard at night, and Lupe and I mending fence in

the morning, then I don’t know who  else it is that

gallops, galumphs, and bristles, like that

Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of six books of poetry. His most recent, Tales from the Breakaway Republic, a chapbook, was published by Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, in May 2022. LaVilla-Havelin is the Coordinator for National Poetry Month in San Antonio.