Slaughterhouse Moms

The researchers arrive, unpack boxes of

lined legal pads and number two pencils,

stand in the rafters and watch the workers below.

The workers are mothers in white aprons,

stained from working the blood pit

where the beasts fight back, and the mothers

get mad, and the meanness creeps in.

The researchers watch the mothers slit the throats

of veal calves, and spilt themselves into two.

One half stokes the scalder, the other maps

the bus route to her daughter’s soccer game.

One half checks the kill-line, the other cheers

for the home team.

The unseen twin makes the mothers whole,

gets them through the dayshift that

calls for the soul and clears the hourly wage.

But nothing tempers the shop floor din,

the screams of the beasts on the belt,

the boom of the bolt-shock to the skull.

Evenings, one twin is furloughed, while the other

washes and braids her little girl’s hair, sometimes

jerking the comb a little harder than needed.

One day, the researchers will depart with a theory.

They will clean the data, compose the report, send it out.

At night, forecasts of fame or failure will unsettle their sleep.

The mothers will clock-out, and go home to scrub-down

their daughters with sandalwood soap and sweet-orange shampoo.

At night, the clean scent of their girls will cling to their fingers,

and the boom of the bolt-shock, will resound in their dreams.

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