-piecing the meat-

some 45 years ago in deep, southern Ohio, a deer laid slain atop

the Chevrolet Nomad station wagon, the Stars and Bars stuck upon

its back-end window, the young buck's permanent eyes, black,
stranger jewels than once they were, round like glassies, glistening
under the brushed-red twilight of Wellston, tied-down for the long haul home.

the guy who shot the young buck called-out for his wife to:

"go get the knife” so’s he could “skin the animal” then

telling her to go find the “good knife” so’s he could “piece the meat”.

I wasn’t familiar with that kind of direct talk during previous
locations of residence, let alone that kind of stuff going on
as a matter-of-course next door to a house I thought I'd never
find myself living next to.

but I've eaten hamburgers and hot dogs at the occasional
backyard cookout, the meat "pieced" from other kinds of animal life and

there are those who hunt the meat down
and others who raise it for the killing and those who pick
the prime cuts from the supermarket's one-way glassy line-ups.

so, as to the cause of meat, I’ve been around the block, meaning
I'm sympathetic to the reasoning behind the slaughter of the buck. 

but one day while driving on Route 31 South just west of Jeffersonville,
a few miles north of the Ohio River and the Kentucky line, a crooked,
scrawling hand-painted sign nailed to a tilting roadside tree read:

“Death awaits you...5 miles”

so, why vote? well, just a thought for the day.