My mother (forty-one)
Greeted me, distressed, one morning.
Told me, her vegetarian offspring:
“Oh, a nightmare – awful it was;
I shudder now. Dreamt I took you
To an abattoir
To show you how humane
It really is. Men lined up sheep
In guillotines. A sliver blade
Rotating, looking weirdly
Like the moon, descended,
But cut only a certain way
Through each one’s neck.
Screaming and bellowing -
Those under the blade
And those watching.
Something’s wrong, said the men.
It’s not normally like this.
There was blood all over the floor.
I was standing in it,”
She concluded.
“It was horrible.”
My mother dined that evening,
Unthinking, on roast lamb.
(1988)
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