accepted by stellium magazine in 2021 and was nominated for best of the net anthology (2021).
“butchering a chicken: annotations from the cookbook”
Step One1: Focus as the squawking turns to inaudible squeals to silence, reminding me of braindead guts buried in the backyard, prayed over, sermons preached, reminding me of taking a child's neck in my hands and pressing (down and out down and out down and out), reminding me of cracking my neck, reminding me of a more “up and out” movement—of gasping, of breaking of bones out of place, of silence.
Step Two2: the body will jerk compulsively after death and the movement will splatter some blood; it will make me shiver, it will sit with me—the mess that i am creating. blood like catching a mosquito on your arm near the Savannah River; all mucky, and the blood smearing against your skin (warm. sticky. new. consumed but no longer belonging to anyone. i cannot take back what i took and it cannot give back what i gave).
Step Three3: let the last of death's convulsions stir you, jerking the chicken until it slowly eases into death on the cutting board—feel disorientated, feel reckless, and feel dizzy bodies stutter sometimes at the most inopportune times
Step Four4: things will spill out and out and out and out and out and out
Step Five5: do nothing else
Step Six: remember you do not get to be nourished anyway
Sub-step: Death's shock does not prevent the chicken from the very lively ability of its goose pimples bleeding while plucking each feather. Though the sink shall rinse away the fluff until the basin turns pink and white like the scars of past cystic acne picked at, since burst, and gushing with excitement until wiped away.
Step Two2: the body will jerk compulsively after death and the movement will splatter some blood; it will make me shiver, it will sit with me—the mess that i am creating. blood like catching a mosquito on your arm near the Savannah River; all mucky, and the blood smearing against your skin (warm. sticky. new. consumed but no longer belonging to anyone. i cannot take back what i took and it cannot give back what i gave).
Sub-step: smack a fly with my bare palm. it landed on the table next to me like mom said it would. splinters appear in my hand, but she will not take a tweezer to it. i deserved it.
Sub-step: do not rub the blood away. i hold it in my hands, warm like what flows out when the moon is high and my tides flush unbidden from me and i grab towels, but nothing stops it from rushing to my hand. like teeth pulled, like teeth punched out and gums broken so young, like tears that follow alone until companioned. shouldn't i have been there; my hand could have caught them too.
Step Three3: let the last of death's convulsions stir you, jerking the chicken until it slowly eases into death on the cutting board—feel disorientated, feel reckless, and feel dizzy bodies stutter sometimes at the most inopportune times
Step Four4: things will spill out and out and out and out and out and out
Sub-step: collecting into a puddle at my feet while i butcher this chicken at the kitchen counter
Sub-step: it will be like a fast river gushing and slippery on the tile floor i will clean it up because mom will get mad if dad saw it would turn my neck backward
Sub-step: it is dripping and i know a mess is being made i know it is because my feet are wet not sticky yet as the blood hasn't congealed in that nasty way i always admired about blood coming together sticking together like a solid almost but right now it runs freely
Sub-step: i don't want her to see i cant have her see if she sees her little heart will be devastated that i have killed this chicken that i have done it with my bare hands her little mind will not see that she eats chicken nearly every week all she will see is my willingness to kill and cleave to take a friend when she needs a friend
Step Five5: do nothing else
Step Six: remember you do not get to be nourished anyway
the footnotes:
1 Kill the chicken by decapitation or shooting it. Decapitation can be done by hand by grasping the chicken's head at the base of the skull and holding the body in the other arm, snap the chicken's neck in a down and out movement. If you chose the shooting method, hold the chicken down to the ground while wrapped in a towel, and aim the pull towards the head.
2 You can do one of two things: skin the chicken or pluck the chicken to save the skin. Plucking feathers from a chicken should be done immediately after the chicken has died whilst the body is still warm. Sit the chicken in a bucket while holding the legs upward with the head hanging downward. Start from the back by pulling several feathers at time, downward and quickly, drawing them out from the reverse way that they lie with a sharp tuck but not enough to tear the skin and carry out this process quickly. Do not pluck the feathers around the neck.
3 Cut the legs and the tail.
4 Do not spill the guts but remove the innards (the intestines) and toss this material aside.
5 Wash the chicken thoroughly and then vacuum seal the chicken for later.