The Last Butcher of Lynchburg

In the cab of my father's Nissan truck, we'd ride on Sandusky Drive
to Harris’s Meats, listening to the Beatles on cassette tapes—
the hills larger and dipping more severely
in the bed of a grown girl’s memory.

Harris knew my father, and he knew me, a scrap
of a lady to be: skinny legs in black spandex shorts,
brown hair of string and oil like thread dipped in canola,
and a smile too big for my face.

There I once was, looking through the glass,
wanting so badly to insert my fingers
deep into the red meat to feel the chill,
to feel what it was like to be inside another animal.

I knew my father was behind me,
Assuming he always would be
taking in the same view,
But he was thinking about the meat differently.