Square teeth gummed
with grey filament,
cuspid and bicuspid,
cleave open my clavicle &
peck out the heart like a wet pip
sizzling. A glut, a guttering, head
engorged and swelling like a tick. Santé.
It is our own fault, really.
Diligent hands decode our bodies
to a riddle of bone, leave us segmented
in painless pieces.
Can you stomach me
now? Stripped and stippled
with shotgun pellets, a redblack
razzle-dazzle. I once heard
the tale of a hunter crucified
on a roe stag’s antlers and now
that stag watches from the wall,
its grinning vice of empty jaws
complicit as a mother.
Entrecôte, anyone?
I understand now, why the pigs
came to eat their endings
from the palms of your hands,
how you made us into something
red, something to be washed
down with sauvignon.
Auberge espagnole of a rib-eyed
daughter, take what you please, don’t
be shy. The unplugged heart spits
& shivers, vomiting runnels
of white fat on the plancha.
They always ask for it saignant.