eighteen chickens in an argentine chapel


    Crates of decapitated chicken bodies,


    cocooned in plastic bags.


    Post-execution victims


    brought to the church for proper burial.


    A few haphazard feathers cling to cold,


    bubbly skin. My knife unzips


    small spinal bones,


    cracking this grown egg into


    two bodies.


    My thumbs press into cracks,


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    tiny hearts and livers


    collected in a plastic bag.


    Blood drips from the counter,


    another crate is brought in.


    Sometimes the blade snags,


    half through half frozen skin,


    small feathers caught under my fingernails.


    I have already disturbed the privacy


    of my current bird, peering between its legs


    before going for the heart


    and pruny lungs and liver.


    My fingers squeeze organ juices,


    popping them into a plastic bag


    we soon overfill.


    Another crate, bodies in the sink:


    eighteen chickens.


    We fill a trashcan with poultry


    as the sink is already past


    carrying capacity.


    Feathers plastered to the steel sink belly,


    a lost heart floundering in


    mingled blood and yellow chicken blubber.


    In the church courtyard, men add logs


    for a religious asado.