Tim Sinclair: Sunday Bloody Sunday

Hot Sunday hot oven
and linoleum kitchen,
red wine breath
and crumb brushed shirt front.
She is absent in easy listening land,
humming to static
as the kids play outside.

Front door slams on his heavy tread,
and her hands make fists
in the bowl full of stuffing -
parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
that she shoves up the arse
of the carcass in front of her.

Get stuffed, he says
as he comes up behind her,
guffaws awful hands round her waist.

It shits and it flaps and it runs round the yard,
but he's never realised
that this tired old joke
lost its head on the block
many years ago.

Thud
and a crunching of vertebrae.
In her mind
she sees bright blood
pumping.