Hilary Menos
Slaughterhouse
Let it be done here, here where death
is all in a day’s work, and by men who deal
in the thing itself. Spare me a slow decline,
years of pain and pills, months in bed,
weeks of too few visits, then too many.
Instead, give me a brief and rollicking ride
through Devon lanes, sun striating my face,
a gentle nudge out of the truck and into the gates
of the cattle race, the open arms of the crush
and the captive bolt’s blind kiss.
Roll me over the grid in the next room
into the warm and expert hands of these,
the last men on earth to hold me; men skilled
in the precise and subtle use of knives,
the exercise of necessary force.
Then winch me through to where the others hang,
trimmed and tagged, bumping haunch to haunch,
couched in the companionable chill.
is all in a day’s work, and by men who deal
in the thing itself. Spare me a slow decline,
years of pain and pills, months in bed,
weeks of too few visits, then too many.
Instead, give me a brief and rollicking ride
through Devon lanes, sun striating my face,
a gentle nudge out of the truck and into the gates
of the cattle race, the open arms of the crush
and the captive bolt’s blind kiss.
Roll me over the grid in the next room
into the warm and expert hands of these,
the last men on earth to hold me; men skilled
in the precise and subtle use of knives,
the exercise of necessary force.
Then winch me through to where the others hang,
trimmed and tagged, bumping haunch to haunch,
couched in the companionable chill.
Page(s) 32
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