In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Callaloo 24.3 (2001) 897-898



[Access article in PDF]

from Vol. 14, No. 2 (Spring 1991)

Last Supper

Sharan Strange


I've seen hogs herded for slaughter.
Penned on the truck, they whine like saws
biting into stubborn trees. Exiting,
their final exercise is a wild dance
skirting madness, a graceless capitulation.
I witnessed Herman,
who learned his name, ate from my hand,
and his holy-eyed terror said more to me
than any apostle's text. Poor swine,
surrogate Christ, you got no redemption,
though you left this world your blood and body.
Cows fare no better, though in India
millions would die in their place--
neither for sacrifice nor grace.
"You don't eat meat? No wonder you're so thin!"
But will gauntness save me, make me
thin enough to slip the knife, noose,
shackles, or the needle's eye?
Could any of us escape the legacy
of Christ's body offered up to save us,
the legacy of bloodshed that continues
in the name of God and State?
Elsewhere this is not an issue.
A Village Voice reporter tallies
"Final Meals Requested by Inmates
Executed in Texas: Steak was the entree
most frequently asked for . . . seven T-bones
and one smothered. Hamburgers and
cheeseburgers were next at six."
Yes, on death row, flesh is the redeemer,
a final consolation. The industry
of slaughter feeding dead men--reluctant [End Page 897]
sacrificial calves, marked, their fate
decided nearly from birth. With T-bones
they get the cross, though it's beheaded.
They get the apportioned body,
a sanctioned measure of salvation.



Sharan Strange teaches at the Parkmont School in Washington, D.C., and has recently been writer-in-residence at Fisk University, Spelman College and the California Institute of the Arts. Her poetry has been widely published in journals and anthologies, and her first collection of poetry Ash (Beacon Press) was published in 2001.

...

pdf

Share