24.2.12

Communion

Cut away the curds of fat that hold the intestines tight to the muscles of the spine. Excise the diaphragm from below. Split the sternum. If your blade gets lodged in bone, hammer the hilt with the flat of your hand. Sever the esophagus, remove the lungs. These are pink-yellow and can be squeezed like a sponge. Watch them go sucking back to their native shape.
The heart looks exactly as you would expect it to. Cut away the blood vessels. Hold it in your hand - this engine of the body, fuel pump for muscle and bone, nerve and organs. Seal it in a Ziploc bag.
You may also put the liver in the Ziploc, if you intend to eat that too.
Leave the entrails in the snow below a fallen log for the racoons, possums, coyotes, turkey vultures. Watch them steam. Watch them sink like warm rocks through snow melting red around them.

...
How To

Hold the doe's head in your hands. The pupils are immense, black as stones underwater, now clouding over with a layer of white. The tip of the tongue hangs from the corner of the mouth, dripping blood into the snow. The blood steams. Let it wash over your bare hands.
It is wet, and your prayer is still warm.



Christopher Mohar - 'Communion' Gastronomica 11:4, 2011