The tradition of sausage making required the meat grinder.
The crunch of the crank. A long lever
with an almost shine to it. An animal stacked on the counter,
bleeding. Room temperature.
A bowl of red spices. It’s the only difference
between us and other beasts.
Mother feeds the machine. I sit on linoleum and sip bird’s milk
out of a small, chipped mug.
I watch the blood leak through the seams of the shanty kitchen,
down the wooden paneling, warm.
I feel as if it were my own blood. I taste it.
I can’t stop chewing the inside of my cheeks.
Pink and festered. We sing through bells.
It’s almost Christmas. The smell of garlic enters
and we are on the verge of prayer
when it begins to scream and gurgle and scream again.
Everything breaks here.
The grinder breaks through the flimsy wooden boards.
The force of your hand. Your anger
at the movement of time. Energy directs scenes
outside of your control. I didn’t know
we could name a thing something it wasn’t.
A hole became the hole.
Fault the grinder. Us.
The invention of holiday. The manner of existence.
Your face and hands are dashed with red.
The bird’s milk is still thick and hot on my tongue.
A sound like a knife breaks through the bones of silence.
I bend with it, but I refuse to snap
because I don’t know how to pretend,
how to save myself.
Now the flesh is on the floor. Blood, on the blinds.
Clumps of cartilage stuck to the dark walls, like stars caught in the body
of beasts who would die too soon.

– Tamara Panici