Medium Rare

The farmyard fence, chickens,
beyond, a grazing herd.
Think warm, think brown, think white.
Think black and furry.
Say hen, say egg, say moo.

      •

Think sirloin, think skirt steak.
Saignant, blood pooling
in rivulets under potatoes,
the mica-glint of fat globules,
a Sauce Piquant spooned over slices
through a surfeit of grease.

      •

I swallow.
You swallow.
We swallow.

      •

Please get down
on your hands and knees
to avoid something unpleasant
(though the menu says the meat
is killed humanely.)
The tabletop’s a little high,
brown steer hide pulled tight.
A four-legged waitress
offers us today’s special:
Human Belly, with Sauce Piquant
(fatty female said to be the cruelest cut,
also the most tender.)

      •

Steer hide on the tabletop
pulled tight. Skin-thin
lamp shades.
Fat globules. Soap.

      •

The farmyard fence, chickens, goats,
beyond, a grazing herd.
Please stand tall now.
The steer and cow are standing too—
taller than you—and they’re walking our way.

      •

In Waziristan near the mountains
soldier Lars from Iowa,
now barely nineteen,
(he said hen, said egg, said moo)—
captured. Beheaded.

      •

Think sirloin, think skirt steak.
I swallow. You swallow. We swallow.
Our bill handed to us
the way bills always are.

more poems