by Elizabeth Cranford Garcia

please, to honor our dearly departed
dinner, this slick pink mess which was once

a chicken. Let us honor what skill was lost
with granny, who could clean and cleave

the whole bird, could butcher with the best.
And let us mourn the passing of that word’s meaning:

the fumbled punchline, the aria off-key, these
insult the butcher, who, prophet-like, can part

the fascial sheath, the silver skin like ribbon;
divine invisible lines of Hereford, of Sea Bass,

culling shapes, naming—the loin,
the sirloin flap, the clod heart. Can pop

the socket, peel the keel, avoid the coracoid—
oh priest! Approach the infinite!

Divide, divide, divide!
You are never left with nothing.

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Elizabeth Cranford Garcia’s work has appeared in publications such as Boxcar Poetry Review, SoFloPoJo, Mom Egg Review, Psaltery & Lyre, several anthologies, and has twice been nominated for the Pushcart prize. She is the current Poetry Editor for Dialogue: a Journal of Mormon Thought. Her first chapbook, Stunt Double, was published in 2015 through Finishing Line Press. She’s a SAHM of three in Acworth, Georgia. Read more of her work at elizabethcgarcia.wordpress.com.