A Baby's Story
by Heather Leughmyer
http://poemsbyheather.tripod.com/index1.htm

I am born, just one second old,
My wriggly red body first feels the cold-
As I fall to the floor, there is no soft landing,
And the stench in the air, beyond my understanding-
My first moments on earth seem somehow all wrong…
Where’s mama’s nuzzle? What’s taking so long?

Finally my mouth finds the liquid I crave,
With no sign of a nuzzle, I try to be brave-
My tiny frame quivers, from fear and from cold
Until finally sleep saves me, this naïve one-day-old.

When my eyes finally open, and I see this awful place,
I will see my mama’s misery, the sadness in her face-
The reason she can’t touch me - rusted bars that enslave,
The waste on the floor of this huge sunless cave.

Soon I will feel the suffering that billions have to know-
Corporate greed surrounds me, as I begin to grow.

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~Pigs are very clean animals who take to the mud primarily to cool off and evade flies. They are just as friendly and gregarious as dogs, and according to Professor Donald Broom at the Cambridge University Veterinary School, “They have the cognitive ability to be quite sophisticated. Even more so than dogs and certainly three-year-olds."~