Boars ramble through cities, 
stop traffic, tear up yards. 
People are warned not to pet them, 
beasts some call “teddy bears.” 

But we on the live feed love to watch 
piglets leap on stone feeders like kids 
on the playground. Everyone loves 
to watch the boars feast on nuts and seeds, 
these boars who live in distant Poznan. 

Humble, not fierce, 
one lumbers through the park. 
Its fur resembles washed-out yarn 
from a much loved toy 
that I yearn to touch. 

Once thundering gods 
and heroes rode fierce boars. 
Freya beamed at the piglets 
frolicking in northern forests. 
Oaks let crumbs of sun through. 

Publisher’s Notes:

Links below were retrieved on 15 August 2023.

1. A forest nook for birds and wild animals by Leśny Zakątek, Live Birds Poland:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EZsnPekrGw
   
   
2. Happy piglets: A new generation, streamed live on 24 April 2023 by Leśny Zakątek, Live Birds Poland:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9Lc4FdhByk&t=410s
   
   
3. Epigraph is from an article by Maria Wilczek, “‘They no longer just migrate, they live here now’: Polish city deals with booming boar numbers” (2 July 2020), in Notes from Poland:
   https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/07/02/they-no-longer-just-migrate-they-live-here-now-polish-city-deals-with-booming-boar-numbers/

Marianne Szlyk’s

most recent books are Why We Never Visited the Elms (Poetry Pacific, 2022), Poetry en Plein Air (Pony One Dog Press, 2020), and On the Other Side of the Window (Pski’s Porch, 2019). Her poems have appeared in Verse-Virtual, Poetry Breakfast, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Pure Slush’s anthology Home, among others. She has fond memories of taking art classes at the Worcester (MA) Art Museum with her father, drawing shoes, plastic grapes, and bottles. She lives in the DC area with the wry poet and flash fiction writer Ethan Goffman and their new cat Tyler.