eighteen chickens in an argentine chapel

  Crates of decapitated chicken bodies,

  cocooned in plastic bags.

  Post-execution victims

  brought to the church for proper burial.

  A few haphazard feathers cling to cold,

  bubbly skin. My knife unzips

  small spinal bones,

  cracking this grown egg into

  two bodies.

  My thumbs press into cracks,

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  tiny hearts and livers

  collected in a plastic bag.

  Blood drips from the counter,

  another crate is brought in.

  Sometimes the blade snags,

  half through half frozen skin,

  small feathers caught under my fingernails.

  I have already disturbed the privacy

  of my current bird, peering between its legs

  before going for the heart

  and pruny lungs and liver.

  My fingers squeeze organ juices,

  popping them into a plastic bag

  we soon overfill.

  Another crate, bodies in the sink:

  eighteen chickens.

  We fill a trashcan with poultry

  as the sink is already past

  carrying capacity.

  Feathers plastered to the steel sink belly,

  a lost heart floundering in

  mingled blood and yellow chicken blubber.

  In the church courtyard, men add logs

  for a religious asado.