Hillbrow's Festival of Meat

by Arja Salafranca

A pair of ribs hang together
in isolation from the rest of their body.
Red and pink
packages displayed in the fridge,
neatly wrapped.
These raw pieces
waiting to be taken home,
made brown and disguised
for human consumption.

The Hillbrow Meat Festival
is a shop clean and yellow
celebrating
technology that can grow cattle
on hormones, keeps them inactive
to let the fat build.
We're capable of taking away their babies
for human consumption.

Far away from my home
lies the abattoir
and a head,
still screaming blood,
sits on the wet, red floor.

Far away from that abattoir,
the rest of its body,
on my plate,
ribs and all,
covered in a gravy,
surrounded by potatoes and peas
satabbed into by a fork
and something more ominous,
that I can't define.