Two animals share a kind of loneliness here, though they live in very different places. Coyote keeps a "diary of sadness" out in the mountains, deserts and plains, and he sings from it at night. Pig, far away in his barnyard, hears the song too. But it doesn't land as simple sorrow for him. It slides into his eyes and ears and sets off the fear already ticking in his brain: he will be turned into "bacon and chops," a roast, "whatever else is tasteful."
The poem's trick is that one sound means two things. For Coyote it is a private record of grief. For Pig it becomes a reminder of his fate, a life lived only to be eaten. The repeated "alone" ties them together, one free but isolated, the other safe but doomed. The mood is quiet, uneasy and darkly funny, with the casual list of pork cuts making Pig's dread feel both absurd and real.