—after the film by the same name
A dying bloodwood tree in the backyard needs
timbering, and my neighbor, Jimbo, the amateur
butcher, bullies his cuniculture bunny rabbits
into playing toro versus torero with a tablecloth
and an electric cattle prod, so he needs a good
dismembering. I’ve never swung a chainsaw into
a sunset, but I’m always willing to try new things.
I’m always willing to imagine the crack-addled
phlebotomist going gonzo and too few orderlies
to mop up the sanguine slop. A sky burial’s piles
of cruor after a village’s undercooked sausage
mishap. That pair of claret-splattered, damned-
spotted, Lady Macbeth hands belonging to a U.S.
president. My neighbor really needs to get
the general idea here. I love picturing pranksters
releasing a pack of rabid meerkats into a Red Cross
donation center, claws slashing, paws splashing
through pools of crimson plasma. An unhinged,
cleaver-wielding chef attacking the masses at
a hemophiliacs’ convention. Adulterated surgical
implements washed up on Lake Erie beaches
toddlers wobble onto barefoot, sobbing. Even
a chainsaw’s teeth hunger for carmine-colored
maiming. Even those branches shade too much
despite rotting. Even we need more real-world
horrifying reasons—sword-swallowing contest
disasters, or trepanation hobbyists performing
in public, or leech-bathing contests—to go vegan
besides getting a chance not to gobble dead flesh
in order to stay amongst the disordered living.