“Meat Strike”

A Poem by Naomi Wallace

I haul the split, black slabs of beef, then lay

them on a belt. It isn’t my job. The guy whose job

it is stands outside the packhouse, all day,

on strike, uptight, calls me a meat-fucking scab.

At 5 a.m., when we walk in, I look the other way.

I grew up in the city, never touched a cow alive.

Here I touch them in pieces. I stroke them from the inside

out, when they’re wet; it’s not right. The meat slaps me

hard when I lift it from the hooks. For balance, I lean my head

to the bone. Once I slipped on the guts, took a dive

with my face in it. I could swear that the bloody slab

made a sound, a sneer, like glass dragging on glass.

At 5 p.m. we go home. The man from whom I took this job

until they break the strike, he spits at me. He misses.

He spits again. He misses again. If I could risk this job

I’d ask him if he’s heard it, like I did, the meat

talking to him or when his nose is full of blood and his hair

webbed with fat, if he’s ever heard it laugh. We’re both shit

without money. The Company rolls the coin into the centre

of the strike and we have no choice but to kill for it.

The third time he spits I get it right on the brow.

I still won’t look him in the face. I walk through the gate.

If meat laughs, I’d like to tell him, it’s because it’s how

it’s no longer an animal, but flesh turned the wrong way,

turned inside out, as I am, as we both are now.