swine

outside a sandwich shop
the boy with a scarlet dyed
Mohawk herds close to

his teenage brothers, shaved scalps
a tribal affiliation, I cannot
look beyond their bald heads

to see the red & white jerseys
emblazoned w/ wrathful ridge-
backed peccaries – an identity

formed around shirts not skin,
college football, plays games
with the mind hearing dogs

behind every chain-link fence
yap at me, as stray cats
present mice & hantavirus,

I have always been scared
witless of wildlife