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The body floods with chemicals saying, Love this,
and she does, and births it; it is a boy
she begins to clean and nose, but he is dragged
away by his back feet. She will never touch him
again, though she hears him howl and calls back
for days.
Her breast milk is banked for others. Her son
is pulled away to lie in his box.
He will be packed for slaughter. How ingenious
we are! To make product from byproduct:
make use of the child,
kill and pack and truck him to plates.
And when the gallons slow, we start over,
and her body says, Love this! And she does,
though in a moment she will never touch him
again. His milk is not for him.
And when the milk slows too slow,
she will join him on the line, pounds
of ground. And how we will dine!
And talk of our glossy dogs! Her body
will break up on our forks, as mothers
beg us for the grain we stuffed her with,
and children beg us for the water
scouring her blood from the factory walls.
And when her wastes and gases and panic
heat our air so hot our world stops
breathing—then will we stop?
Then will we grow kind,
let the air cool and mothers breathe?
-Ashley Capps
He wasn’t conceived in love
but commerce.
But life wants itself
and grows love.
His mother loved what curved
and snugged
in her body. His mother wanted
her child, whom she birthed
on the ground, who wanted rest
at her damp flank,
who was
loaded.
The truck brought him wet
to sale.
So new to the world, so undone
by my kind—I would kneel in the funk
of his prints, at the bare flank
of his mother, ear-numbered,
breathing hollow, calling
from her throat.
-Ashley Capps