My Steak Poem

Steak

Steak makes me feel
I am an animal.
I become aware of my teeth,
My marrow,
That my jaws are bones,
The potential of my flesh.

I forget what it cost to get steak.
Meat is a thing to me
Alone.
A cow is a thing to me
Apart.
I cannot mourn a thing I never saw,
A thing that makes me visible.

When I think back to the places I have been,
Where steaks are raised to die,
My nostrils flare in protest
Of the stench of a fecal mixing bowl:
Larger than my neighborhood,
Deep enough to creep over the edge of my boot,
A horror I cannot bring inside to meet my wife.

So I enter barefoot into the grilling place.
The gaseous corps of a steak,
Oozing green, delicious to flies
Makes me feel
I am an animal.