Ides
The pig is slow and bloated but struggles little. The manioc root slows the bleed, the bleating lasts the day, or is that its echoes, it is hard to follow with the fence, the poles move as it is walked, the rails rough.
The fence was simply constructed. The workers tired, left to their own in the mud without oversight. And yet the pig was contained. Double duty as the slop processor and dinner provider, the magical transformation of waste.
But the relief of the pig. To be stuck and release the built up pressure — if only a candle had been lit, but in the reflective noon of the frozen melt who would have seen?
Who would have seen? asks the one whose hands are warmed for a time with the seeping blood. He doesn't even work here, he just gives the orders.
And at last there is relief. The bubble bursts, the bleating ceases. Hands are cold again, but the voices are warm. The incessant chatter that goes down with the greasy meat in an attempt to capture it, to lock it in time with its description.
But it cannot be captured, and the salt of the flesh and the salt of the tears and the salt of existence are for a moment dissolved in a perfect lattice that are in the morning are but a second glance on the fabric.
The fabric of life that rips and stains but will not let a perfect record of losses defeat it. It is washed and sewn and folded and worn in the face of the coming week.