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  Table of contents Issue Twenty SLAUGHTERHOUSE SAFEHAVEN
by ZUZU VON DERSKI		 Home  
   
 

His lips taut, the question hung
on meat hooks and stung
Which meat would you like to be?

A coppery nectar,
a blue watermark
on the backs of knees
and the crooks in elbows

Where bits of skull
would break
inside the slaughterhouse.

With vise like hugs,
cartilage cracks
as fingers embrace
pry and dislocate.

A safe haven for rib cages,
we keep them maintained.

Choking on blood
from the leftover nub
of a ripped out tongue.

Bodies fall smacking concrete.
They gurgle, “dead meat.”
   
   

 

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Zuzu Von Derski lives a quiet existence in New Jersey with her two-legged cat, Nubbins. She has her MA in Writing Studies and her dark verse has been previously published in Sanitarium Magazine.



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