Andrew Miller
On the Road to Damascus
That day, beside the road,
I watched a boy slaughter a ewe.
He called to her with gentleness.
Something like a kiss
was her name on his lips.
She came to take an apple from his hand.
He slit her throat, eased her fall,
winched her up between two cypress trees.
She made no sound
or just a cry as if to say:
"It is finished." It was.
He worked her body into meat.
His lips against her jaw,
he ran the knife down old white teats.
Paps gave blood,
first the color of rose,
then the color blood.
She had come, and he had kissed,
then split her open,
dropped the offal to his feet.
And then I heard a voice:
a call as bright as silver.
The poor gave answer:
Women pushed to hear the price
of the stomach, the tripe's black noose, the greasy
milk of
pancreas,
and the meat.
She had come, and he, whispering
a name as imperceptible as prayer,
performed those stations there:
the coming, the cutting, the rise, the fall.
Copyright
© by Andrew Miller 2006. All rights reserved.
|