Meat

Han's thoughts are the burr
of blades on a rotating drum
that chews through carcasses,
that guzzles sinew, cartilage, muscle, marrow.
He can smell salt and the tang of machines.

Han's job is to keep the blades from sticking.
Sometimes a fragment of meat becomes lodged in the spindle;
sometimes the cogwork gets clotty with blood.
He opens the dented hatch and pokes at the streets and
crossroads.
He uses a spanner, a broomhandle - whatever.

'All life is sacred,' his grandfather said,
'but meat is just meat.'
Han once found a gold ring on the factory floor
still banding a grey, wrinkled finger.
He pocketed it, and the blades sung like locusts.