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Day Four
XI. THE GOAT ABATTOIR
10. The Decapitation Of The Goats
The goats heads were hurled from the slaughterhouse,
They could have been shot eagles plunging to earth
but they were big & hairy, they flew in mid air
as they spun in the heat, landing in the back of the truck.
The bounce of severed heads & horn & shaggy blood red
necks connected to nothing.
A build up of cloud, of foam & water
& blood on the ground.
The ones that missed, growing up through the soil
as if they would sprout roots.
Heads hanging on, the life hardly having left them.
Mown off at the shoulders.
The goat abattoir rid itself of excess goat
from twenty feet up.
Every fifteen seconds or so, a head thrown down.
Then he appeared from up in the works.
His face poking out, from the thick plastic flaps.
Straight from the shift in the sky.
A man smiling so that his teeth separated
& all his face lurched up to his hairline.
He waved to me, with gloved hands, that moved in circles,
Goat's blood up to his forearms.
He would have been up in there for hours.
Keeping up with the rock & swing of corpses.
His job to make them lighter,
more ethereal for consumption in Taiwan.
He was like a special guest from a horror film.
He was the crazy man from sideshow alley.
How does he have the heart to do it?
But the strength needed for this work is in the forearms.
Every thirty seconds, a goat's head flew in mid air,
suspended for a moment, like a satellite, or a giant ball thrown overarm.
Blood rain lashing out, from spiraling horns, like the arms of a galaxy,
as I watched from below, stunned like a child,
with the manager, in my hairnet & white coat.
For a slow second the goat's head spun, on its axis,
its shadow, vanishing, into the fiery orb of the sun.
I became giddy, off balance
& the black crows circled & said: Sister?
But I had been affected.
It was when the goat's head hit the truck,
that the whole land, seemed to bounce, off its hinges,
& the manager said, 'Careful there, you'll get covered.'
It was when the sky swarmed with decapitation & flies
that I found myself cold, knee deep in pink foam,
made of water & goat blood.
Then dad's voice came to me from the ute.
"We're finished," he said.
The trees appeared to droop & sigh, as another head was expelled.
The embarrassed manager, touched my arm & led me on. |
