meat

by Eylie Sasajima

Sweet rot of deer carcass wakes me in my ditch nest. It is juicy warm amidst the crisp frost of a long night. I snuffle search the frozen clovers, the dead grass, the leaf husks. Sleeping beetles in the foliage make a nice crunch in my mouth but they are not the meat I am looking for. Meat is a stretchy fullness. An embrace that holds me from the inside. I nosed up a den of baby rabbits one summer and gorged on the slick sinews of them. What a feast. Cold wind ruffles the fur of me. Less of a deer smell here, I am getting further away. I double back to the ditch. Yes, there it is again. My stomach rattles its hunger. On the other side of the ditch: frail fencing and a field. I am soft enough to wedge my way through. When I crawl with children, I cannot go this way. Too tricky to sneak under the wire with them dangling on my back. The last ones scampered off before the ice set in. It gets lonely in between litters when all that clings to me is the curdled scent of whichever thing I last ate. In the field: a picked-apart squirrel skeleton still spotted with fur, trash caught on the broken corn stalks, a spray of fresh cat piss. The old tom must be near. I must hurry or the greedy vultures or the foxes will take my meat. I hurry up to where the deer smell is strongest, the place where the ground crests into asphalt. Yes, yes. Still steam-fresh on the other side. Neck bent backwards so its tail touches in between its eyes. Not even the flies have arrived yet. My meat, mine all mine. I scurry toward the glow of decomposition. My claws tick-tack on the pavement. There in the deer’s deflated chest is a cavity where its flesh pours out. I put my mouth there and gnash. It is wet and slimy and coats my snout. Fingers curling into blood-brined fur, I push myself toward the ribs where the heat is strongest. Already I can hear the skitter of the fox family, the insects creeping, the ravens stirring from their nests. I gorge fast. My gut swells. Only when I verge on bursting do I stop. I want to burrow into this deer and make a home of its insides but the creatures who would share in this meal would just as soon make a meal of me. Meat-drunk, I stumble back towards the field. Satiation is a hum. The hum gets louder. The hum roars on top of me. Everything is daytime-bright in one sharp flash. I go heavy and hollow as the air burns. When the glare of the sun has ebbed from my eyes I see the car blinking at me and where I was full I am now empty and the back of me gushes death scent all over the black ground. I try to make my mouth into a fear shape but I cannot move my mouth anymore. Death scent smells like meat. Out of the car, a woman. A man. Oh my god, she says. Her mouth makes clouds. The man’s eyes watch her mouth and her clouds. Don’t touch it, he says. Her knees press the frozen ground and she touches my head with her naked thumb. Oh baby, she says, I’m so sorry little baby. I’m sorry. She gleams warmth. The man reflects her light. Do you want me to move it out of the road baby, he says. He puts his fingers on her shoulder. The car glow circles them in gentle rings. I’m sorry little baby, she says, I didn’t mean to. The man’s breath drapes over the woman’s hair and arms. It knows, he says. She leaves my head on the ground. They dim back into the car. I still taste deer juices in my mouth. Its eyes watch mine in the thick night. I still hunger. From the field, curious jaws come scavenging. Little teeth prod at what is left of me. Reflected in the deer eyes is the shape of me. It hunkers close enough to comfort. Maybe it remembers my pouch. On its mouth, meat glistens.

Photo of Eylie Sasajima

BIO: Eylie Sasajima is a poet who calls the Chesapeake Watershed home. Her work appears, or is forthcoming, in Shō Poetry Journal, Poetry South, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing her MFA at the University of Mississippi. Find her on IG @eylie_blue .