“This is what happens when you buy food for your beloved children over the others.”

“Grab the wheelbarrow Les, get it cleaned up!” or so he said down to me.
The first few moments I merely shook my head, hoping I had heard wrong.
If my ears were only corrupted and worn I could plead ignorance, be free.
But I had heard him loudly rambling, a half-muttered curse, a foul song.

“I’ll be back when they’re taken care of. Get it away from the house!” as usual, trapped,
while he drove away in his dusty-red Demon that choked out smoke, a rifle in hand.
I sighed, looking over the sand and brush. I shuddered, knowing my life was crap.
I stared at another unfair chore, worse than usual, more than merely clearing the land.

The first glimpses were terrible remnants of a bad movie or ill dream, awful chance.
Pieces of flesh had remained wet from the early morning, even under the sun.
The flies had began to swarm, but they were not my worries, nor their dance,
For I only feared what made the mess, and what fell around me, willing me to run.

I had never had to deal with this kind of carnage, only the simple things,
a lengthy snake after the frightened chickens, to be swept away with pole.
The same frightened chickens plucked and beheaded, their necks like springs.
On nights we lacked meat and would have it, one less hen was the toll.

Impaled lizard, squashed snake, boiled chicken, washed up, stenching sea life,
had been all I knew of death, beside bird, gopher, road kill, and bleating lamb.
Until that day I had seen exposed flesh, bone, soon-to-be dinner meat, ripe,
but never had my eyes drowned on the insides of kids, torn from limb to limb.

My disgust soon forced itself up my throat, burning like merciless acid rain.
The rising sun struck my eyes like a devil, smiling and full of impatient rage.
Vultures and Buzzards swung wildly in the cloudless sky, doubling my pain.
I wasn’t absolutely positive they wouldn’t be able to carry away a boy my age.

I had never swung the wheelbarrow around so wildly, racing against my legs,
wanting the bodies to be gathered, moved, pushed together as one dead heap.
Open mouths and partially bitten through tongues? No smiles would I have made,
for these ravaged bodies had before been like brothers and I wanted to weep.

My mind flittered away then, wandering upon so many impulsive decisions.
Do I go through with my father’s chore, finish cleaning up the drying remains?
Do I cry and weep for the fallen, hope I was not next, fully abandon reason?
In the end, the only thing my body would accept was compliance, I didn’t complain.

Wild flapping wings followed me as I ran, pushing the weight to a far off pile,
waiting to feast on the food I brought, waiting while slick jaws chewed at the empty air.
Bloated red and purple faces stared back at me, sweating, nearly smiling, smelling vile.
The clear sky was then full of like and dissimilar birds, dropping low as if on a dare.

The look of that legion of tar-backed forms, stun me more than the barbwire I knew well.
They helped me even more, since I couldn’t stand them, and NEEDED to be done.
The look of partial and mangled bodies lost a hold on me, it helped break the spell.
If ever in my life I sat incoherent and dead, it was up until then, enduring that fun.

I merely let go to my body and continued, watching White and Peach colored sand,
Greenish-Yellow brush, thin sickly weeds, wild radish, pricking burr, my own feet.
My body took over and in a numbed delusion of reality I felt my arms grab and grab,
tossing torsos, hindquarters, and the rest of what lay about. Bend, Grab, Drop, Repeat.

The hollow thud of their bodies striking the rusty insides of the wheelbarrow was bad.
It recoiled through my head, dancing inside my brain like steel-hoofed Minotaurs.
The louder the sound of bones and flesh falling, the more I wished I had no dad,
Not a man that would force his son to lean down and grab the dead, until he was sore.

Picking up the pieces of the rampage, I could only fathom was made my rabid dogs,
was a mechanical process that I should hope I might not repeat, though do not fear.
The sand had a way of clumping into muddy pools of reddened gloom, miniature bogs,
wet places my fingers did not like to caress under the angry sun with the maniacal leer.

The birds were merely doing their job, grasping and lunging at their newly dead,
it was only my sad luck to be cursed enough to also be required there, unjustly enslaved.
I didn’t kill those goats the night before with razor teeth and knife-like claws stained red.
I wasn’t aware they had died until I woke up and was given my assignment: cruel, unfair.

Of course, thinking back I realize how hilarious it all was, how it all is worth a laugh.
My father, the chickenshit that he was, wanted no part of his bloody, hoofed children.
The moment he saw them dead and in pieces, he was gone mentally, near mad,
for he only left with his borrowed rifle to find the responsible dogs and shoot them.

If I could remember the look on his face, maybe I would be able to laugh even more.
But knowing the gazes I recall, and that his one true love in life was down for good,
I could really find fuel if I was so very spiteful to a man that is now down and gone.
Instead I try to remember the sound of the rifle as he found the dogs. I knew he would.

I like to think what happened was karmic, that he wasted hay, barley, and oats.
I know I didn’t go through the hassle for nothing, for I’ve learned so much since.
Mistakes are made, things are said, feelings are hurt, love is under bestowed.
Most importantly, the past is what shaped and forged my future; it made a difference.