Butcher

 

I told him before our clothes fell

to the floor. He insisted he didn’t 

care. Later, after we showered, 

he tells me he hates blood,

how disgusting it is, how I’ve ruined

his sheets. I tell him of the butchering 

my father conducted each year,

the slicing of the cow’s throat, its scream

drowning in the warm blood

that gushed over my father’s hand

as he held the head back. 

I tell him of the hide peeled back,

the meat sliced from bone. I detail

the organs I later cut into chunks

for the dog – the liver, the kidneys – 

both thick with blood. I don’t stop

describing till all blood drains from

his face and he retches, hand over mouth

as he runs to the bathroom. When I leave

I don’t look back. 

 

Courtney LeBlanc is the author of Beautiful & Full of Monsters (forthcoming from Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), the chapbooks All in the Family (Bottlecap Press) and The Violence Within (Flutter Press), and a Pushcart Prize nominee. She has her MBA from University of Baltimore and her MFA from Queens University of Charlotte. She loves nail polish, wine, and tattoos. Read her publications on her blog: www.wordperv.com. Follow her on twitter:  @wordperv, and IG: @wordperv79.