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Chris Ellery
Meat Market
in Aleppo
The faces of sheep
grimace from a tub
of their own offal.
O lamb who takes
the sins of the world.
Smooth purple fists of flesh
dangle from ropes
of fat and tendon.
Liver, heart, kidneys.
A tray of yellow brains.
Atfadel!
I am welcome
to ground meat sold by kilo.
The bones, stripped
of every fleck of meat,
seem the long-tailed skeletons of children.
In other stalls,
the pale, wet chickens glisten,
displayed with legs
immodestly spread,
naked
among the covered women.
Copyright
© by Chris Ellery 2008. All rights reserved.
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