Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Uncle showed you
the way to skin a rabbit.

The dead furred creature
swung from his hand.

You remember the knife
slitting open
the soft belly
and the innards
dragged out
and cut
until all was cleared
out and ready.

Then he broke
the back ankles
and pulled off the skin,
like one undressing
a small woman
from her coat of fur,
until the naked body
remained
and the fur covered
the head.

You watched
with your stomach moving
as he chopped off
the head
and with the fur covered over,
tossed it in a bag
to be disposed of later.

There’s dinner,
Uncle said,
one naked rabbit,
small and cold
and dead.

This poem stands alone. I don't know if it is autobiographical or not...
I noticed that you also posted the above poem, as a comment, on my litkicks reprint of "Vaulting out of the Vault". Yeah, I get it. A man's gotta eat...

I, too, used to eat rabbits when I was a kid. When I was an adult
I learned to cut beef off the hook. When a teenager, I once caught an armadillo and we had armadillo stew at a Texas barbeque, nearly fifty years ago now...

Thank you, Steve, Yes, this kind of poetry is a different style for me and hoping to compile for a proposed book at some future date.(hopefully says he.)

there is a lot of power in these unique remembrances that don't always appear in fictitious work.....I like this style, and wish you luck getting a book together...

Thank you, Saw.