A quarter past four,
road to the city at dawn.
Delivery trucks
moving slowly.

Carcasses at the back,
tightly packed in the freezer.
Until not long ago
all of them, too, had souls.

But their souls are no more
and now the city’s near.

No space to move.
It’s easier to bear
being so tightly packed
when the soul is gone.

Easier in the packed freezer
when the soul is not there.
In the cages, after all,
they’d found no comfort, either

But their souls are no more
and now the city’s near.

Tom takes a sip of coffee
from his vacuum flask.
This animal is still alive,
those other ones are dead.

Tom once nearly got into
“Got Talent” TV show.
“Nearly” is always better
than not to have tried at all.

Tom screwed it up
in the auditions.
That huge bright hall
proved too much stress for him.

Sang a piece by Skaldowie,
“I Sing for Sing I Must”.
Carcasses at the back,
tightly packed in the freezer.

But their souls are no more
and now the city’s near.