The Meat Locker

Janet Buck


The Meat Locker

Silk scarves of stockings
in my sister's open dresser drawers.
Crew-cut smiles, a turban
made of crowning jewels
like tourniquets that wrap an arm
and stop the fact of bleeding death.
Tabasco sauce in thinking streams
was never welcome on our plates.
Ice picks in the shape of tears
were never given things to strike.
Amputation's tournament
with stubborn's swords
and pity's mocking velvet throne.
Turtlenecks of jealous fire
and losing more than just a leg
have wrapped their warp
around my neck, torn my
gums with dental floss.

The sado-maso-urgency
of self-acceptance on the shelf.
Turpentine in crystal goblets,
my liquid did not suit your shape.
Booze became my parachute;
but drunk would never open much.
Mousetraps of a bathroom mirror
would clip the tail of growing up.
The scarlet sacred of your bones
like mutton on the sides of lamb
in leather-smelling locker rooms
that spelled my legend's slaughtered home.

Janet I. Buck

Posted over on Ariga

“On the page,” she says, “is where a letter drops to its knees. Catharsis, consciousness, and insight are braided threads of a trinity, a broomstick which encourages others to swat convoluted cobwebs in attics of their own lives. Writing is a private scream with a universal echo that emerges from humble accordions of inner-need. Publication's mop does messy floors, but art does act. It is here we learn what matters most. It is here we unseat demons, take cushions off emotion's couch, and sit before a roaring fire.”