And there you are
Goat draped over your shoulders,
The wool spotted with blood:
But not a stray drop on you,
Nor on your obviously shaved if not sanded,
Brazenly heaving chest. But not overly so.
And the goat arranged
Ekphrastically, evoking an entire
History of idealized meat providers,
Harvesters of the flock. You,
Both a member of the shepherds' guild
And the lone provider, delivering
To your family what will be
Days of processing, days of seeing
Nothing is left to waste: meat and offal
And hide and hooves; our tools
Laid out like an old man's schedule
For visiting his harem -- meticulous,
And without pause for failure.
Yours is the master stroke of murder,
The gift of raw material. I dare you:
Consider what we do to make your
Gleam of joy at the kill usable.
Praise our industry, praise
Our gurney list of meat preparation:
Our careful hands, our contest
With the flies, our metrical might
In drawing the practical from your
Gift of corruption. I dare you:
Praise us.
By 1558 Pope Sixtus made
abortion mortal sin. Then, three short years
later, Pope Gregory Fourteen laid
that bull low so two hundred eighty-one
years down the line Pius Nine could trade
his ban on abortion for Napoleon
Three's acknowledgement of Papal
infallibility after the French had noticed
conscription-shrinking population drops.
Forty-five-hundred priests over the past
fifty years raped at least 11,000 kids
while Popes eulogized sperm and eggs, miscast
repeat molesters as redeemed, made deals
for God to grease wars' and pedophiles' wheels.
