Yearly Slaughter

~Joanna Vance I have no choice but to take the headless, writhing bird and dip it into a vat of boiling water, once – twice. I must pull and pluck its sodden feathers away to reveal a pocked skin, varicolored, strangely warm. The pin feathers still hide like small darts, my fingers search for their pointedness. I abstract its life: creating a formless shape, reminiscent yet anonymous. My heart is sunken: the long afternoon light highlights the mess of feathers and blood in the barn. The smell has permeated my clothing, my hair, my fingers. Even after washing my hands continuously, allowing the soap to pool in my palms before the water streams it away, even still do my fingers remember.