The Butcher-Shop on Henchman Street, Boston

The Butcher-Shop on Henchman Street, Boston

Always in his window hung
the mornings slaughter.
On this street named for executions
where the guts of ten dollars
would buy milk white chops;
as the thud of his cleaver cleanly carved bone from gristle.
He worked as if blindfolded;
a knife-thrower never missing that quivering mark.
A sculptor of luscious breasts and rumps and loins,
trimming excess avoided by squeamish passersby
full of fleshy breakfast sausage.
I sauntered upon that sawdust sea of visceral crimson
where half-skinned sheep blushed.
An outsider, blind to that everyday slaughter
suspended on hooks,
deaf to those rhythmic sounds of ritual,
unaware that those were spurts of life
amid sacrifice splashed on the white gown.
And on a bright clear morning
hung forever by shameful slaughter
I carelessly asked, had he ever cut himself?
I remember those Mediterranean eyes
in that darkened forest where beasts slumber
beneath the branches of whetted blades,
and that sharp smile as he slowly raised the left hand –
where index and thumb had lost their snap.