Abattoir
Quinn Rennerfeldt
Electricity’s quiet cry sweeps
through the nerves of a numb lamb,
edging it into sleep. Metal’s gentle tip
skims across its skin, hits vein, opens
flesh into a yarn-red pout.
Soft blood pushes up over the wound’s
claret lip; the flow waxes and
wanes with each oscillation
of the lamb’s warm organ.
Its flood licks white tile,
splits like pearls of hot
red mercury.
Agile hands strip the dermis
from muscle, stroking long
bones, revealing its slick inner workings
like warm clockwork:
deftly braided tendon, plush
pillows of creamy fat.
Tenderly lifting femurs
from bald sockets,
cold fingers climb the rungs
of slippery ribs, teasing the last
meat off the lamb’s frame,
stripping its smooth,
chalk-white spine,
separating the ruddy
remnants into boxes of ice,
rose-colored, wetly clinging
to pith and marrow
and thew.
