At last: a poem from Steve Cahill!

 

The Killing Floor                              

Steve Cahill

I remember the soft velvet darkness

of night and the first colored cusp of dawn

the rocking rhythm of the loaded truck

and the sounds of the animals inside.

 

I remember the cattle pens and chutes

narrowing down and forcing them to go

into the slaughterhouse in single file

to the waiting men on the killing floor.

 

I remember the man with the hammer

and how he delivered that stunning blow

with the cows bleeding out while still alive

and eviscerated before they died.

 

I remember seeing their liquid eyes

watching the hooks and pulleys winch them up

while they are being flayed and dismembered

by men wearing bloody aprons and boots.

 

I remember their knives, so sharp and fast

like flashing lights along the moving line

where hundreds of cows were killed every day

packaged up as fodder for the masses.

 

I remember political functions

campaign banquets and rich donor dinners

serving tenderloin with lofty language

new promises for last election’s lies.

 

 We’re at the portal of the abattoir

—which is another name for slaughterhouse—

looking at the labyrinth of pens and chutes

—hoping it’s the way to democracy—

 

            but it’s still the same old abattoir door

            opening back onto the killing floor. 

                                                                Steve Cahill