At last. A whole day to myself.

Just as I pull out my chair, though

I see them there, shorn on my desk-

two sheep burst like bladders

across a floor too bloody to be

known by time & place but now & here.

        IT MAKES YOU WONDER WHY THEY

        CALL IT THE LIVE SHEEP TRADE.

I don't vomit, just feel like vomiting.

Those soft-boiled eggs for breakfast.

I cover the sheep with a sheet of A4

but find I can't not look at them.

When I do, I only half-see mutton

in a skein of gristle & red gravy.

It's worse than seeing or not seeing.

I fold the sheep in a manila folder &

go for a brisk walk around the block.

Cats. Two dogs, one dog-owner. No sheep.

Rounding myself up for home, I know

I'm not re-entering an abattoir

despite washing my hands in the

COLD tap's water, the HOT tap's blood.

I unfold the sheep from their folder &

impale them in red on the white wall

directly in fromt of me. Slow blood

glugs, oozes & then drips dripping.

I sit in my chair trying not to stare

at the redbacks & the red centipedes.

I want the animals to die as quickly

as this animal would want to. If

they go down in a quick fix, though

there'd be no live sheep trade &

with no live sheep trade, more farmers

would have to leave the land &

more sons of farmers have to die by

coronial enquiry. Still, if the sheep

are not to live but die by slow drip

does it matter whether or not they die

in Riyadh or at Gepps Cross? Anyway

so that two carcases can slump & stiffen

across the proverbially large desk of the

Federal Minister for the Living & the Dead

the RSPCA trusts me with a 45 cent stamp.

Not for long but for too long, I think

about soaking off the 45 cents. In blood.

Before I manage to post the postcard

the phone rings. Baa-aa-aa, baa-aa-aa.