The offal,
slop, swill (pitiless river),
the beak, the bone,
newspapers pink
with sinew’s oil
piled up on the kitchen floor
cumulous and close,
the air of drippings,
the wet air of fat,
how, when the animal opens,
the naming begins
(what will be kept
what will not be kept)
and how, when the animal empties,
a sugar sets in,
a pressure, barometric,
and all that’s left will be rendered by it,
made small and smaller by it,
until, what is there to name?—
but the lye and the burning clean
