PORK BUTCHER'S EPIPHANY

 

Cunda the Pork Butcher

grew old at his trade,

slitting the throats of squealing pigs,

sloshing his feet around in pigs blood,

dismembering their carcasses

to draw flies and shoppers

to the marketplace.

 

He should have been dismembering

his own carcass instead--

hanging his body, feelings, perceptions,

mental formations and consciousness

on meat hooks in his butcher shop

for his customers to contemplate.

 

He sickened in his last days,

deranged with a delirium

that wrestled him to the bedroom floor

and seized him like a butcher.

He clutched at his throat with agony,

and spit up blood convulsively,

and died in his confusion--

squealing like a pig!