Slaughterhouse

After closing the doors,
She draws the curtains
Across the window; and
Removes her skirt with her back to me

A white lady past her sixties
When I saw the olive-green panther
On her right buttock, poised
For a leap, with its forepaws raised,
I hung back a few seconds without pulling up
The jeans, yearning to touch
The tattooed figure with my fingers

The jeans fit her perfectly
Now our seamstresses were bound
To stitch and stack this model
For a whole month – even in their sleep:
“Spicy shorts”

In the trial room,
She stands in front of multiple mirrors,
Admiring again and again
How well the garment sculpts
The buttock’s lower curve
Into a crescent, and grips the thigh
There is hope for high growth
In sales, she says, and offers praise

Ordering us to design
A top for the jeans,
She removes her vest
To aid measurement:
She wants it high, she says,
Level with the lower ribs

A webbed brassiere,
Prettily embroidered with lace,
Holds up her sagging breasts
The tail of an animal,
Crouching on her left breast,
Snakes upward, below her neck

I stand close, waiting,
Measuring tape in hand

Tongues jutting out,
Leather jackets suspended on hooks
Throw us their fixed stares
Like cattle hanged to death
The room’s heat keeps rising

What can I do?
When I pulled the too-tight jeans off her legs,
Her bum, the skin dry and flecked
With minute cracks, was scratched
And bruised by my fingernails

The wound resembled
A panther’s claw marks,
Says the autopsy report

SLAUGHTERHOUSE