Kill
South Africa, 2008, leaving Kruger
June’s winter, ivory-rinsed blue,
a wild dog tugs a sock of skin
down an impala’s stick-leg penciling skyward
one gray hoof--
What makes them kneel
is their need
for leverage, paws tucked
in the torso’s broken bowl as they strip
the steaming meat, emptying the splayed body
to a thin ghost
of steam, to hide-sack and jutting leg bones, deflated
bagpipes, a sprawled
marionette--
Xenophobia was again
the radio word of the day, people still burning
on both sides of the border. After death
by fire, the limbs
will not be straightened, whether the feet
were or were not
hacked off, whether the arms received
short sleeves or long, severed at elbow,
or wrist--
Sanctuary is a landscape
of smoke and thorns; shelter, what can be seared
around you. Sated, the dogs turned
to play, chasing
each other through thornbush, one
collapsing to sleep, his fur a patchwork
of smoky topaz, ebony, day-old snow blurring
into yellow grass and gray sand, his face
blush-stained from the impala now a tilted
horn lyre, a bloody basket
of unraveling ribs.
Mid-hunt, the pack was a shifting
precarious galaxy, harlequin’s motley
mapping each dog’s back a sui generis constellation
of fawn continents
and black sea, white ice caps, the impala herd a tawny
undulating river, the dogs’ royal
fly-whisk tails brilliant
white plumes not to lose
the us and the them in all that coppery
adrenal flow. The human body always curls
away from flame, from the hand
that tosses it
into thatched roof or cardboard walls
ignited with the last
caught words of this world--Refugees, traitors, imperialist
stooges--
A week driving, I was still forgetting
stay left, still mistaking for blinkers
the windscreen wipers’ wand. The dogs
far behind, when I pulled back
onto the highway I caught myself
turning my head
as for a distant country, straining
to search the one direction
no one any longer would be coming.
First published by Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics, January 2011.
An audio file of my reading "Kill" is available on the Guernica web page, at http://www.guernicamag.com/poetry/2225/meek_1_1_11/
For photo gallery of wild dogs after kill, Kruger National Park, South Africa, click here:
South Africa, 2008, leaving Kruger
June’s winter, ivory-rinsed blue,
a wild dog tugs a sock of skin
down an impala’s stick-leg penciling skyward
one gray hoof--
What makes them kneel
is their need
for leverage, paws tucked
in the torso’s broken bowl as they strip
the steaming meat, emptying the splayed body
to a thin ghost
of steam, to hide-sack and jutting leg bones, deflated
bagpipes, a sprawled
marionette--
Xenophobia was again
the radio word of the day, people still burning
on both sides of the border. After death
by fire, the limbs
will not be straightened, whether the feet
were or were not
hacked off, whether the arms received
short sleeves or long, severed at elbow,
or wrist--
Sanctuary is a landscape
of smoke and thorns; shelter, what can be seared
around you. Sated, the dogs turned
to play, chasing
each other through thornbush, one
collapsing to sleep, his fur a patchwork
of smoky topaz, ebony, day-old snow blurring
into yellow grass and gray sand, his face
blush-stained from the impala now a tilted
horn lyre, a bloody basket
of unraveling ribs.
Mid-hunt, the pack was a shifting
precarious galaxy, harlequin’s motley
mapping each dog’s back a sui generis constellation
of fawn continents
and black sea, white ice caps, the impala herd a tawny
undulating river, the dogs’ royal
fly-whisk tails brilliant
white plumes not to lose
the us and the them in all that coppery
adrenal flow. The human body always curls
away from flame, from the hand
that tosses it
into thatched roof or cardboard walls
ignited with the last
caught words of this world--Refugees, traitors, imperialist
stooges--
A week driving, I was still forgetting
stay left, still mistaking for blinkers
the windscreen wipers’ wand. The dogs
far behind, when I pulled back
onto the highway I caught myself
turning my head
as for a distant country, straining
to search the one direction
no one any longer would be coming.
First published by Guernica: A Magazine of Art and Politics, January 2011.
An audio file of my reading "Kill" is available on the Guernica web page, at http://www.guernicamag.com/poetry/2225/meek_1_1_11/
For photo gallery of wild dogs after kill, Kruger National Park, South Africa, click here: