The Butcher

A butcher closes up shop
Turning the sign next to the window
Which reads: “serving you for forty years.”
To then retreat to the backroom
Where he kneels before his livelihood
Hanging dead on a meat hook
And scrapes the blood and fat
from the cement floor.

His scraping like the quiet ticking
Of a clock, unnoticed and heavy.

He works in the cold to avoid decay.