Dall Sheep
Let’s consider this wild beast before
death—head bowed to summer lichen
in prayer, tender slope of the horns
like the wrists of two pressed palms in reverse.
Now imagine the sheep as each trinket
that occupies an altar, and the altar itself
gently alight with candles from the corner store.
A handful of almonds, prosthetic leg of a forgotten
relative, raspberry, two fresh eggs.
This is each day. And the glory of it all?
These creatures can only fail themselves:
miss the moss in their path and witness hunger.
*
To kill the sheep they had the human advantage
of a Cessna to track the flock along the aluminum
horizon. They had a gun with a viewfinder
probably to help them pick the beast that would get them
through winter. The staple was a winner too.
So much so that this was the hard part:
pounds of meat, the pelt, horns
left on the side of the mountain
where she was butchered.
How did they prepare for the breakdown? Raincoats?
Trash bags? How long did it take to bleed the thing out
What did they do as they waited?
Two people with fifty pounds of meat each,
a long hike down to the bird that would bring them
home. A carcass left for the scavengers.
*
Our task was to pick the meat clean of bone shards,
hair, and neatly package a serving or two
in this white, slick paper. This isn’t an elegy
but let me ask what the difference would be
if it had been livestock, just some stupid animal
that needs you. It would be easy to eulogize
the creature only because it couldn’t possibly be
so different from us. The ones out there though?
More clever and sturdy. This is the image of ego:
we want to be the wild beast that roams for miles,
is clever somehow. But we are only the livestock,
dumb and needy. Four years later and I still
don’t have the language for gratitude--
for 120 nights and eight places to sleep
with people I know longer know or knew
at all, for each ride hitched across town:
those moments of intimacy which ignite
and fade as a match. And for making me really
see people (a telescope finally come into focus),
the resentment (a curse) there too
after learning at the end of the summer
from my only family in that haze of a town
what everyone else knew but never bothered
to tell me: there was a rapist in one of my non-home
homes and how after months of being present
with the illusion of warmth, it ended with a bright snap
I heard from something in the sky that groaned
a low buzz. Whoever operated the mechanical bird
made sure I knew: this world was not made
with you in mind. Made sure I recognized that I was just
a lowly sow that broke free and was only briefly
in the presence of these bright creatures. Meanwhile,
I missed the lichen and mosses as I hunted their sustenance
in an embarrassing game of mimicry.
*
Let me say this again: this isn’t an elegy
to the sheep, or its rotting remains, or a testament
to people living in a dying world.
This is simpler than that.
I never said I didn’t lack imagination
but these days each thing slides
into each other thing so that soft and hard
water is the same as soft and hard teeth.
(The first: a description of how the hair feels
after a shower in any hotel between here
and bum-fuck, the second: maybe also real
but mostly an understanding of the self,
and how long it takes to rot from the root).
Let’s consider this wild beast before
death—head bowed to summer lichen
in prayer, tender slope of the horns
like the wrists of two pressed palms in reverse.
Now imagine the sheep as each trinket
that occupies an altar, and the altar itself
gently alight with candles from the corner store.
A handful of almonds, prosthetic leg of a forgotten
relative, raspberry, two fresh eggs.
This is each day. And the glory of it all?
These creatures can only fail themselves:
miss the moss in their path and witness hunger.
*
To kill the sheep they had the human advantage
of a Cessna to track the flock along the aluminum
horizon. They had a gun with a viewfinder
probably to help them pick the beast that would get them
through winter. The staple was a winner too.
So much so that this was the hard part:
pounds of meat, the pelt, horns
left on the side of the mountain
where she was butchered.
How did they prepare for the breakdown? Raincoats?
Trash bags? How long did it take to bleed the thing out
What did they do as they waited?
Two people with fifty pounds of meat each,
a long hike down to the bird that would bring them
home. A carcass left for the scavengers.
*
Our task was to pick the meat clean of bone shards,
hair, and neatly package a serving or two
in this white, slick paper. This isn’t an elegy
but let me ask what the difference would be
if it had been livestock, just some stupid animal
that needs you. It would be easy to eulogize
the creature only because it couldn’t possibly be
so different from us. The ones out there though?
More clever and sturdy. This is the image of ego:
we want to be the wild beast that roams for miles,
is clever somehow. But we are only the livestock,
dumb and needy. Four years later and I still
don’t have the language for gratitude--
for 120 nights and eight places to sleep
with people I know longer know or knew
at all, for each ride hitched across town:
those moments of intimacy which ignite
and fade as a match. And for making me really
see people (a telescope finally come into focus),
the resentment (a curse) there too
after learning at the end of the summer
from my only family in that haze of a town
what everyone else knew but never bothered
to tell me: there was a rapist in one of my non-home
homes and how after months of being present
with the illusion of warmth, it ended with a bright snap
I heard from something in the sky that groaned
a low buzz. Whoever operated the mechanical bird
made sure I knew: this world was not made
with you in mind. Made sure I recognized that I was just
a lowly sow that broke free and was only briefly
in the presence of these bright creatures. Meanwhile,
I missed the lichen and mosses as I hunted their sustenance
in an embarrassing game of mimicry.
*
Let me say this again: this isn’t an elegy
to the sheep, or its rotting remains, or a testament
to people living in a dying world.
This is simpler than that.
I never said I didn’t lack imagination
but these days each thing slides
into each other thing so that soft and hard
water is the same as soft and hard teeth.
(The first: a description of how the hair feels
after a shower in any hotel between here
and bum-fuck, the second: maybe also real
but mostly an understanding of the self,
and how long it takes to rot from the root).
Marlo Barrera, 2016
Nonfiction:
Bust article, "We Hear You!: Reclaiming Roe in the South" co-written with Oriaku Njoku, Executive Director of ARC Southeast, January 22, 2016
Bustle article, "What are Abortion Funds and Why are they Important?" - quoted with Kamyon Conner, Josephine Kabambi, and Oriaku Njoku, January 22, 2016
The Advocate article on the EACH Woman Act, July 27, 2015
Bust article, "We Hear You!: Reclaiming Roe in the South" co-written with Oriaku Njoku, Executive Director of ARC Southeast, January 22, 2016
Bustle article, "What are Abortion Funds and Why are they Important?" - quoted with Kamyon Conner, Josephine Kabambi, and Oriaku Njoku, January 22, 2016
The Advocate article on the EACH Woman Act, July 27, 2015
