I shall approach it like the master
carver of old-time, not niggling or moving
slowly while detaching stray fragments
of fat and corky gristle, nor helplessly
gazing this way or that, twisting and turning
the flesh, then standing back and cursing
a perfectly good knife, but, fixing
his eye on the carcass before him, a lucid
space already sifted into parts, he approaches
the rump, the blade thickless and erect, and,
letting the tang glide into his fingers, the grind
as smooth as a lily leaf, with one soul-stroke
he strikes the sinews cleanly from the bone,
the knife never touching even the smallest
ligament, the sturdy edge as sharp and shining
as a green spring shoot.
