Before the butcher touched bone, tendon, cartilage, hooks, scales, steel, he sat across from his wife with a blunt knife and waited for the butter to soften.

Rain like it was Biblical. Sidewalk empty, just me and a happy drunk with the weather-hardened look of a rough sleeper sauntering down the hill from Victoria Station in my direction, shouting out his joy to the world.

Salvage

My bucket doesn’t have a list and it’s never been kicked.

Even on the really bad days when the mocking shine of its metal body has tempted my foot to make contact,

His phone pings; the morning sun glares. Kyle staggers to the bathroom mirror amidst empty bottles for inducing oblivion. Red-eyed and dishevelled, with stubble masking gray complexion and black hair in matted clumps; he checks his phone. Today’s date snipes him between the eyes: one hour till…

The second time something slips from his hand, he does not move right away. He studies the distance between intention and consequence. It looks smaller than it behaves.

Still Life of Fish and Bird

It’s 16 below zero. Actual temp. We’re sole owners of the shore, windchill pushes it down to minus 36.

We walk from cane fields,
cotton in our nightshirts, sweet