Transplant

By Kelly Madigan

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The neighbor calls
about the feral swine he killed,
tells us that in the half light
he first thought it was a calf, then,
because of the way it was moving, a bear. 
Says it took five shots to drop it. It’s extra dark 
in the field by the time we’ve come to extract samples
for the state research lab, but our headlamps 
reveal him, on his side, covered in wiry bristles.
His feet are off the ground, so I count
four toes on each stubby leg. It’s twice my size, 
tusked, eyes closed. I put my boot next to it
to shoot a photo, for size. We’ll bring 
the samples home, and keep them cool until 
they can be delivered.

The neighbor has lived here 
a long time but can’t remember a wild boar
in this area, ever. He points out 
the places in the field disturbed by the animal.

When the wildlife biologist cuts 
open the heart to retrieve the liquid sample 
the protocol requires, I ask him, and the neighbor, 
if they remember pigs’ hearts being placed 
in humans, and they do, and they note this heart 
is smaller than they might’ve guessed, the first 
any of us has seen, and all three of us 
are staring at it, in a black field near a pack
of very vocal coyotes. And I’m thinking
of my dad, and his damaged heart,
how he wanted to save enough money
to pay for a transplant himself
if insurance denied it. 

In the end he wasn’t
a candidate, and I can’t recall now
why they used pigs’ hearts in people
or if they still do, and I’m in this field
with two men, one holding the heart—
my pledge, my vow maker—the other
part neighbor, part stranger, and the pig
splayed open, alive and wild an hour ago,
every last one of us with a heart
that will eventually give way,
curious and marveling, mortal.

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Kelly Madigan has received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Distinguished Artist Award from the Nebraska Arts Council. Her work has appeared in 32 Poems, Terrain.org, Prairie Schooner, Flyway, and Calyx. Her books include The Edge of Known Things (SFASU Press) and Getting Sober (McGraw-Hill.)

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