after Sebald Beham, 1538
Bad luck for the calf.
Head back, it lies
on the butcher’s table, heart and liver
spooned into a bowl, a pail
of blood and innards
waiting to be drained
and given to the dogs.
The other son looks on.
He’s been rebuked, but then
he’s used to that.
Besides, he’s the reasoning kind,
a man who’s seen enough of life to know
that change is not
so easy, few
can mend their ways,
once they’ve acquired a taste
for elsewhere.
Meanwhile, the father goes
from room to room,
greeting his friends and neighbours, all those guests
who pitied him for years, cut down to size
by something that will feel
like triumph, if he works it hard enough.
He’s hired musicians
– boys with flutes and harps –
enough noise, and he might convince himself
that this is all he needs: the greying wife
consoled for years of grief,
the child he once thought lost
come back to life
and bound to him
by duty
and repentance.
Out in the yard
the dogs have abandoned the pail;
tipped over on its side, it oozes
blood clots and threads of bile, the moonlight
pooling on a spill
of fat and matter;
yet someone on the high road, passing through
and hearing music at the open door,
would think it was a birthday, or a wedding,
the tallowed gold of home, ringed round with vines,
a single lantern
in the attic window.