3 pigs

the first house is made
of telephone wires & broken phone chargers.
a street is always a parable.
where do you build your sleeping?
is your brother awake?
when i was little 
i peered in at pigs piled their pens 
at the local fair & they whispered
"we're building we're building."
they weren't telling me,
they were telling each other.
brothers always come in threes.
i once built a house 
just inside my rib cage 
as practice. it was made
of paperclips & jingled 
when i played tag at recess.
fell apart after a week or so.
all the door knobs in my parent's house
are loose. the cabinet knobs
fall off one by one. the second house
is made of old light bulbs
all perfectly balanced together.
their filaments loose in their skulls,
the pig who lives there
is the careful brother who thinks
nothing will ever happen to him.
the rooves in all my apartments
have leaked down on me. 
what is a forced baptism? 
you don't need wolves for destruction.
here comes a wind with it's own teeth.
i wake up with bite marks sometimes
on my back & my forearm.
are they from my own gnawing?
the pigs are just trying
to live as artists do,
in impossible homes. the last brother
with his symetrical lawn
& flamingos & his house
constructed from his own old shoes.
there are no quit enough 
so he used his father's shoes
for the roof; heels & sneakers
& sturdy snow boots at the bottom.
the pig are never content
& they spend their afternoons
shuffling between each other's houses.
there is no wolf, not yet,
but they each know 
one is coming. they are well read.
we ate pork chops about once a week
as a kid. slabs of meat
in their crockpot home. 
all rooves are lids. my skin 
unfurls for dinner. the wolf 
is walking down the street.
he whistles out of tune. 
has a newspaper
coiled in his heart 
like a snake. when you wake up
what do you learn 
about your body?
a light bulb flickers on
by itself. there are no pigs.
i made these houses.