After Meat

We eat nothing now the source
is burning. The flanks of English
cows are black and curved as though

to spread desire. Newspapers show
them dead on backs, limb-stiff, bellies
tight with late-year calves, the skulls

like chalk explosions, cast against sky,
a black scrim behind which farmers
soak gas. Once the curtain lifted;

on the smoky low stage, you saw
women divide themselves as though
cut down by blades. Between the lighted,

shearing legs: the entrance wound,
a burst of red. How is there any
want left in the world? Your hand's

on my breast, desirous, becoming
a different animal.