I was served the horse steak, and it came
on a sizzling stone. I wore a bib
to keep the fat from spoiling my shirt.
The steak was the size of my hand
and it bubbled as the tissues were cooked,
and juices ran and steamed up on the stone
as the meat began to retract. The blood
cooked out of it, as did the paddock
where the horse had lived, which no one cleaned—
that and the cold meadow he was born in.
Last winter was seared from the meat,
as was the timothy hay, which was moldy,
as August had been damp and the barn roof
had leaked. The horse’s dam was still alive then,
though her teeth were bad and she slobbered
when she chewed. I bit down on what remained
of his indifferent owner, the pinworms
and botflies abundant that June, the clover
he preferred and the little sour apples
that fell from the neighbor’s unpruned tree.
I ate that last trailer ride to the auction,
where the horse’s shambling gait had marked him
for his future on my plate. I ate his entire past—
all of it. I ate his sturdy, unloved back.