By Any Other Name

I wasn't more than three or four that winter.
I stood in the snow, looking into the barn.
Dad was settling the weanlings into the sty:
Barrow and sow, pink and wriggling and squealing for their mash.
I whispered, or I thought I did.
"Honeycomb and Roast Beef."

Dad looked up at me.
"Good names," he said. "Honeycomb and Roast Beef."

I was astonished he'd heard me, but pleased, too.

When we ate them in the spring, they tasted like something else.

Pandora's Heart

Heart compressing,
Ears pounding.
A chest crushes her hopes.
Ribs contracting,
Throat closing.