she put her hand under my scapula and pressed down into the crevice, parting the the muscle and the bone, stretching the ligament. then, working her fingers into the space, pulled outward, as though to free my wing from its fleshy tether. my lips parted slightly, and silently except a labored exhalation. she worked her hands then down my laterals as though she were working dough, first massing the skin into smaller piles, swirling them, releasing, then leaning her whole lotioned forearms across the space she'd prepared and bearing down with all her weight. all the air pressed out, my lungs squeezed in my compressed ribs, no breath.
faraway, cara, in her large paris apartment with the big windows over the treed courtyard and the special cupboard just for cheese. she is standing in the kitchen with a big knife and small, pearly body on the chopping board in front of her. she says: "i'm going to teach you how to break down a chicken." and how with that knife she deftly split flesh from flesh and bone from bone and rendered one contiguous piece of being into pieces that we cooked and ate. they were perfect. no cut was wasted. was everything reduced — that smaller pile — or elevated? this is a wing, this is a thigh. no longer beholden to the chicken.
they finished in the same manner, wrapping up the raw body still amazed to have been so divided, washing their hands, and leaving by through the doors through which they came.
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