The Slaughter of the Hens
The dry, frayed ends of autumn, the garden
charred by successive waves of night frosts,
the scent of wild grapes in the air.
Outside the kitchen’s back door, a small
metal barrell stood over a fire waiting on
a slow boil, set up by my grandfather early on.
Nearby a makeshift table – old planks placed
across two carpenter horses – covered with
yellowed newspapers; large bluish canning jars
at one end of the table, each sterilized
in a bath of scalding water and later each
snuggly fitted with a hen’s cleaned out carcass
to be cooked, then placed on shelves in the dirt
floor cellar, making their first appearance on
the Sunday dinner table during winter months.
My grandmother, rotund and lacking any
sentimentality for most animals, least of all pigs
and chickens, waited in a rough cloth apron
with years of use, a small sharp knife in hand
easily cut into a dozen dead hen’s bodies
like a knife through soft butter.
The chopping block, a weathered piece of old
black oak, its surface marked with grooves
where many an ax head fell and left its mark.
With a wave of her hand she signaled grandfather
to begin the slaughter. A few feet away, within
a temporary wired enclosure, unknowing hens
milled about pecking the grassy area for what
would be their last meal. Grabbing each hen by
its feet, he laid her body on one side, her head
almost on the edge of the block and with the speed
of a sudden lightening bolt, brought down the axe,
the hen’s head dropping to the ground, it’s neck
squirting blood like a garden hose, then
tossed as the first of many that would grow
into a pile of her dead sisters.
Yet there was always a hen that sensed her fate
and managed to get back on her feet and dash off
headless, as if defying death itself while her
eyes were spared the gruesome sight of her
headless running body and not so much as
giving a cheering cackle to so heroic a try.
Copyright © Maurice Rigoler | Year Posted 2023
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