Listen to a podcast of Benjamin C. Clark’s “A Fall Slaughter.”
I only agree to butcher my first sheep
after another argument with my mother.
Dark early, day is dragged unwillingly
towards its inevitable demise,
and I follow my father closely, silently
down the path to the barn,
directly away from my mother’s
sobbing, dulled with each step
from her, from the house,
from her house.
Surrounded by pens of sheep looking on
my father teaches me the difference
between a stylet and a spear point paring knife,
how to crush muscle and bone
most effectively with a cleaver,
the three main cuts of the lamb.
He teaches me the humanity of killing
quickly, with quivering beast
on his side, my slight knees pressed
against his body—
blade angled across
throat, near jaw, severing wind-
pipe and bones of the neck, traveling
completely through to the spine.
My hands, his hooves
stop trembling.
The body is skinned,
hung to bleed.
My father says quietly,
look at the quality of his flesh,
how tender it must be,
this proves the character of his pasturage,
the importance of where he was reared.
I follow my father closely, silently
out of the barn, between two rows of sheep.
My outstretched fingers graze
the thick coarse wool, the wet open
mouths of the rest of the herd.
About the author:
Benjamin Clark spent his formative years in rural Nebraska and now lives in Chicago, Illinois. He will be attending the School of the Art Institute this fall (2010) as a Creative Writing MFA student. He regularly attends the Vox Ferus writing workshops, is an assistant editor for Muzzle Magazine, and will have his first full-length collection of poetry released by Write Bloody Publishing in early 2011.
It sounds different when you speak it.. slower and more sombre than when I read it silently, quietly in my head. This poetry was made for outloud.
This is quite an affecting poem. Most of us are so far removed from the act of slaughtering an animal that it can evoke images of a repulsive, terrible violence that is powerful in its ability to conjure up a wide range of emotions. This is curious since the majority of people are silent accomplices to it. I enjoyed this very much.