Carniv(ore)

My father picks his teeth,

lower lip glistening pink

like a cow’s cut throat.

     Meat threaded

     between his incisors,

     I can smell the hide draped

     around his neck,

     the cow’s spine like a crown still

     saliva-dripping.

     He wipes his mouth, blood

     dries in his hands’ ridges,

     his greased smile like a chipped brick.

     I cut open his stomach

     and pull the cow out—

His insides stinking like metal.

His metal face sweating,

his metal breath,

his lower lip glistening gray and hot

like a freshly polished pipe.