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Day Four
XI. THE GOAT ABATTOIR
5. As I Kept Walking
As I kept walking all my skin became parched.
As hard as the grey country from Bre to Bourke.
As peculiar on the surface as the ruined scenery.
I heard the scream shifting into the gear of terror,
inspired by murder at the killing box & the fact
I could even walk & yet I smiled & did my work.
Inside a crooked mile I walked, inside the killing.
I could even laugh lightly on the way out
& make small talk with the manager,
as he lit up a smoke.
I said, "It's amazing, the noise that they make,
it's almost human."
The manager's face shone a sunburnt red.
The whole place stank of death.
I could finally smell it, as it entered me
& I became affected:
by the heat, the manager, the murderer, the land,
myself,
all doing nothing, all looking on.
They've been caught before, they know its wrong.
But we just looked on. |
