Blood in the Bosphorous, a carcass in the garden.

Hulking haunches of meat hanging from hooks,
dangling in smoke shrouded basements,
down cobblestoned alleys that stink of sweat, urine, and rot.
The whir of heavy machinery
as men eschewing aprons shave and chisel
the corpses down to size, their wives lugging home
dripping deliquescent hunks of flesh
in sopping paper bags.
You watch them, their fresh trails of red,
and remember the blood on the sheets,
the blood upon you,
Flesh upon flesh, water on water,
the flowing of love going to waste.

In the streets the boys set off fireworks and howl in delight.
The girls show off their ornate gowns,
giggling and making eyes.
Two skinny cows munch on fig leaves, their ribs
strutted like the insides of burning ships.
Dumbly awaiting their fate, big sloe eyes lolling over the world
alast: shanty homes, girls in shawls and pearls, a table on the street
where a family of gypsies eat.
And at the end of the road, two brothers
cleaving a sinewy spine down to size
with an axe.
Nothing will be wasted.
They take turns, passing the heavy axe between them,
wiping their brows with handkerchiefs,
the corpse splayed open on the bare ground like a carpet.

Blood in the Bosphorous, a carcass in my garden.

She’s gone south to be with her family.
You’re alone here, prepared to mark another year.
At home in the city that reeks of death.