White Meat

He comes home and finds her asleep,

long and pale, stretched out on the couch,

TV remote loosely held by mannequin-shaped fingers.

When he reaches to touch her shoulder

she flinches in her sleep, like she knows he’s there.

He kisses the air above her cheek; she was always so sensitive.

In the kitchen, he drapes his coat over a chair.

He takes a hot dog from the fridge, wraps it in a piece of bread,

and eats it cold.  He wonders what her white skin would look like

from the other side; smooth, or red and bumpy?

He wonders what her beating heart would look like

or how tightly her intestines are coiled.

He wonders what he would see if he took a knife and split her

from chest bone to navel; if there was anything inside

that might reveal her story.  He wonders

if he is evil.

But how can he be evil if he still loves her?

His odd little wife with her strange ways;

fingernails chewed to nothing and strangely angular feet;

soft dimples on the backs of her knees; her soft humming, lilting Celtic tunes;

how can that be wrong?

He tears a drumstick from the lukewarm chicken on the stove

and chews contemplatively.  For the first time it occurs to him

that he is actually eating the skin of an animal.

It makes him feel sick.  He wonders what human skin tastes like.

The long carving knife is still stuck in the chicken.

He pulls it out of the white flesh.  Why do they hollow it out -

the chicken - why don’t they leave it whole?

The man walks back into the front room

and considers the pale skin of his long, slender wife.

She doesn’t wake as he lifts her wrist delicately and studies

the blue veins running down the inside of her elbow.

He gently touches the knife blade to her skin, deciding where to cut.

She loves him; he knows

she won’t mind.