The Mineshaft
835 Washington Street
The Meatpacking District
(For Upton Sinclair)
Beautiful it was
in the 800 block of Washington
at Little West 12th
next door to the fumidity of the Mineshaft
the Hudson River a block away
walking past gorgeous sides of fresh red meat
carried after midnight from idling trucks
across the shoulders of strong young Teamsters
a butch ballet in bloody white aprons
carrying slaughter from trucks
engines idling in the dark music of night nosed in
to the fence and weeds and trash
under the elevated freight train tracks
of the crumbling High Line
an army of butchers ignoring leathermen
wearing expensive cow hides
carrying carcasses across cobbles
glistening with dew and blood and fat
lugging the striated red flesh of cows pigs lambs
up under the fluorescent-bright metal awning
over the meatpacking dock
hoisting flesh to hang upside down
a fashion show on meat hooks
revolving on a stainless-steel conveyor
like shirts at a dry cleaner
disappearing the fresh kill to a backroom abbatoir
clamor voices laughter curses
What a gift it was
in those first newly liberated years
to be able to be meat every once and awhile
to play at lambs led to a laughter of slaughter
in a lifetime surrounded by prigs
so moral and ignorant
they judge it is a bad thing:
such enfleshment,
such incarnation of self,
such becoming flesh
that is, well, the very heart
of non-ironic theologies
Saint Pat’s on Fifth Avenue
turning bread and wine
into the body and blood of God
the Mineshaft on Washington
turning the body and blood of gay pain
into the soul and divinity of orgasm.
New Age folks brag
flesh sex leads to spirituality.
I’m talking about
flesh sex leading to animality.
After all,
we are equal parts meat and spirit
and I’ve never minded celebrating body and soul.
In the sanctuary of the Mineshaft,
the word was made flesh.
For a writer inventing new words for
the Love That Once Dare Not Speak Its Name,
what coinage could better?