WEBVTT

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"Eating the Horse."

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"I was served the horse steak
and it came on a sizzling stone.

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I wore a bib to keep the
fat from spoiling my shirt.

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The steak was the
size of my hand,

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and it bubbled as the
tissues were cooked

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and the juices ran and
steamed up on the stone

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as the meat began to retract.

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The blood cooked out of
it, as did the paddock

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where the horse had lived,
which no one cleaned.

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That and the cold
meadow he was born in.

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Last winter was seared from
the meat, as was the Timothy

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hay, which was moldy,
as August had been damp

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and the roof had leaked.

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The horse's dam was still alive
then, though her teeth were bad

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and she slobbered
when she chewed.

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I bit down on what
remained of his indifferent

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owner, the pinworms and
botflies abundant that June,

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the clover he preferred,
and the little sour apples

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that fell from the
neighbor's unpruned tree.

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I ate the last trailer
ride to the auction

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where the horse's shambling
gait marked him for his future

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on my plate.

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I ate his entire past.

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All of it.

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I ate his sturdy, unloved back."

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