My grandmother was a butcher before she married my grandfather. A red-headed, glamorous butcher. A dichotomy. Handy though when it came to killing pigs on the farm and boiling trotters and making black puddings and sausages and brawn and a myriad of other unfashionable pig-products. Ever eaten a pig’s ear?
Carcass
a fly shivering blue on curds of fat
slam
heaving thud of meat on stone
head gone
skin gone
just peeled flesh
dark brown-red grained muscle
like striated ripples of rock on a cliff
cold dry fat thick against rump
ribs open reaching vacant
knife thin sharpened against stone
cleave between bones
crack bone from socket
glossed hip sphere perfect in hand
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