Meat
One day, and for a week after, my car smells like meat.
I clean it out, vacuum, commit a chemical scourge
but still the smell is beef broth and steakhouse.
I drive with the windows open, in New England winter 19 degrees.
No change. I begin to wonder, is it me? Am I the meat?
Maybe the things that carve my existence into something
not higher, but more delicate, honorable, have begun to slough off.
Dead skin caught in the sheets at the foot of the bed.
Age whittles you down to fundamentals: carrion, tears, questions.
I clean it out, vacuum, commit a chemical scourge
but still the smell is beef broth and steakhouse.
I drive with the windows open, in New England winter 19 degrees.
No change. I begin to wonder, is it me? Am I the meat?
Maybe the things that carve my existence into something
not higher, but more delicate, honorable, have begun to slough off.
Dead skin caught in the sheets at the foot of the bed.
Age whittles you down to fundamentals: carrion, tears, questions.
Jan / Feb 2024
Sara Eddy is the author of two chapbooks, Tell the Bees (A3 Press, 2019) and Full Mouth (Finishing Line, 2020). Her work has appeared in many journals, including Threepenny Review, Raleigh Review, Spank the Carp, and SWWIM. She lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Art: Donna Morello, Collage