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Poetry

The Live Album

Kat Payne Ware

Two sonnets from The Live Album by Kat Payne Ware, published by Broken Sleep Books on 31 July 2021

 

TRANSPORTATION

The fragility, juiciness, desirability and proper taste and smell of
meat are the most important qualities of pork for the consumer.
– Urszula Ostaszewska, ‘The impact of transport on the quality of pig meat’

 

DARK, FIRM, DRY, [1] and nose to rump

we convoy cleanly in at twenty-five

degrees. It’s dim — the dawn is not yet plump;

our driver carries sleep-fat in his eyes.

 

The trailer’s drainage bed is dark and dry

my footing’s firm the first time in a life.

The mister sweats for me, and I recline

happyish, all thought and meat, then light

 

drives us into day. The boars afright:

the slatted beams flash over us like bar-

codes; a pig is crushed against the night

life’s end; the searching torches of the star

 

transform us in our sunbed. Make us dark.

The day stretched over us like Formica.

 

 

PALE, SOFT, EXUDATIVE: [2] I’m raw

material. Susceptible enzyme.

O ensemble of cuts, let no flaw

interfere in the production line

 

let my yield have body. Is it mine —

this walking assemblage, this brass band

of shaking pinkness? Is it nearly time

to snuff my name and let the flaming brand

 

sing from these wax chops? Businessman

don’t be soft. Your part is to exude

confidence. To lead me up the ramp

with pale hands. I need you to delude

 

me into faith: staring down the bolt

gun, the bolted sow, the bolted door.

 

 

1 ‘DFD (dark, firm, dry) meat is characterised by a pH higher than normal. This type of meat occurs when animals are subjected to prolonged stress or intense physical effort immediately prior to slaughter …  The pig production cycle usually takes place in enclosed buildings, so reducing exposure to sunlight reduces the level of stress’

2  ‘PSE (pale, soft, exudative) meat is characterised by a faster than usual decrease in pH below 5. This is due to the intense, brief stress response to which animals are exposed immediately prior to slaughter (inappropriate handling of animals during unloading, mixing of unknown individuals).’

 

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