The Butcher of Prague

Reinhard’s morning always starts
with spirit-rousing exercise, a remedy for
the stiff arms of yesterday.
A long stretch held in place to conjure
flex nostalgia.
A series of quick neck swivels,
favoring right.
A set of slow pushups while the Ark rests on his back,
 safely sealed.
     (Eccentric motions
         for greater gains is
             a motto he lives by.)
Chopping meat is hard work,
though over the years,
as his heart of iron has been warmed
by each increasingly radiant sunrise—
and in turn
its beat changed by thermoelasticity—
he has yielded more and more
of the heavy labor
to his Golem, Moses.
Chop, chop, chop.
A pound of flesh
{red meat}
for the venerable Mr. Himmler, whose little round
spectacles
light up with the
glow of the morning sun,
concealing his wide-eyed wonder
at the precision dance of
the cleaver.
In a duet between man and instrument
reminiscent of older times (introspective violins,
beats provided by Hollerith),
Reinhard and Moses quarter a
massive pig.
Long knives slide through stout shoulders,
hip joint,
and between the ribs,
rendering the formidable beast
manageable.
At his feet constantly are
Gabčík and Kubiš,
plotting and working
his weathered slacks
with paws.
“Give us meat,
bastard!”
he hears them cry
with tongues transformed
by their hunger.
Scraps of turkey,
a timeworn display of goodwill,
silence Gabčík, but Kubiš hops up
and seizes the coveted horsehair stool.
Only something rare and bloody
will satisfy him.
The old meat-man can do nothing
but smile and stare into
probing yellow slits,
“Maybe you should develop a taste for
the four-legged spectres
who haunt my cabinets.”
He slices a fresh piece of steak.
“Neeeeeeever.”
A chatter of chitters
and squeaky proposals
echoes through cupboards,
wishes for a day when
the cranks
of
meat grinders
(and big barrel-organs)
fall off.
Moses returns to the
front, having
put the pig on
ice.
His clay form
is splotches of red
over
veiny, eroding natural divisions
not unlike continents
and nations on a map;
Geology or geostrategy?
The quaintness makes
Reinhard chuckle.
Chicken for Mrs. Koch,
with extra giblets,
is the late afternoon’s
biggest priority
(a page in
a dogeared black book—his master list of people worth doting on—
has her marked for special treatment,
two underlines!)
Chop, chop, chop.
Two bolts of lightning,
distant,
but threatening
a fast-moving
turbulence,
act to usher in a Five O’clock World ,
with dusky renditions of “Hey!” and “Yeah, yeah, yeahs” omitted
(though not the yodeling).
Customer traffic stills
as the weather turns and
the butcher nods off,
cobblestone pathways to his shop soon to be obfuscated
by night and fog.
His dreamscapes are low-lit elsewheres:
janitors turning out the lights in great laboratories of mesmerism,
London without illumination,
subterranean caverns.
But late
into the dark and stormy evening,
three cloaked figures—
soaked inside and out by the all-permeating deluge—
awaken him
with a
ringing doorbell
and an order:
5kg of blutwurst, urgent.
Ancient bones creak.
A hassle, to be sure,
but business is business
and nothing is impossible.