Ritual

Lori Heninger

About the Author:

Lori Heninger is a writer, poet and nonprofit executive. Her over-30 years of experience in US- and internationally-based work has shaped her thinking and writing. Lori’s book “Words for Women” won Quillkeepers Press fall 2023 chapbook competition

Ritual

November and the garage became a butchery;

a buck upside down, eviscerated,

hanging so the blood drained onto newspaper

my father changed daily;

my brother and I stood and watched, as he,

with knife sharp as his temper, slid skin from flesh;

red nose running in the cold, he’d stop,

take the white handkerchief

I had ironed a week past, blow and continue

until the deer-shaped red muscle

smelling of raw and wet and late November leaves

hung, its thick coat a mass of folds on the cement.