Migrants Devouring the Flesh of a Horse

Since there’s no time for grinding or cooking,
it’s best not to drag the parts too far.
As the solitary knife goes in and out,
the mama is exhausted but also rather mild
in her expression, and the baby resembles
a sea horse compelled to know something painful.
No one appears left out—stabbing, licking, or chewing—
or sees the texture of the animal’s insides mirrored
in the fluttering of cloth, not lightness
or delicacy, but something more basic, related
to the moist earth.  Once this horse ornamented
a field, with its flexible limbs and nuzzling head.
Eat me, it neighs now.  The tree of life
is greater than all the helicopters of death.