Meat Market

MEAT MARKET

It hangs there like a tongue upturned,
Black with thirst, a buzzing, flickering
Biosphere of midnight blue, caught
In a web of sun.

Occasionally a pink dot
Emerges like a finger tip
Piercing dark paper.
The meat slab sways slightly,
Sculpting the air like a heavy
Anchor. The market is busy
And indifferent.

One shocked white face stands out
A marble statue against a soot-
Stained wall. An expression of astonished
Revulsion rips the canvas
Of normality, it’s silence knife-edged
Against the rumble of the crowd.

Starvation’s awkward truth flaunts
In the face of plenty. Here in this
Field of microbes thick as sin,
There seems to operate a mystic
Code of peaceful dynamics as
A thousand thread-thin antennas
Practice a complex choreography.

Here there are no politics, hunger
Strikes, signboard slogans, protest
Marches. The flies are complacent,
Content with their tiny space
Allotted in this sweet warm putrefying
Corner of the earth.