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first
published in Mouth Ogres, (ed Hugh Dunkerley, Dave Swann),
2001,
Oxmarket Press. ISBN 0 9540981 0 2
Squeeze Chute
My aunt’s cattle don’t
know
why
they are hooshed on the truck
bellowing
and rolling their eyes.
Their
long lashes brush the slats.
They
are bewildered.
When
I was small I bellowed,
threw
bottles, ash trays.
The
fog horn on the Nantucket ferry
was
an assault to my ears.
Bursts
of laughter suspended me
in
computations of guesswork.
For
example, an outing, the circus:
two
men with red mouths
spill
water, crash heads with a ladder.
Surrounding
me, rings of spectators
roar
all at once at some signal.
White
terror. I hear my mother’s voice
explaining
clowns.
The
killing of cattle is quick and humane.
Endorphins
dull the pain of sudden wounding.
At
Aunt Ann’s ranch I saw the squeeze chute.
It
held a calf in place for branding:
an
inflatable tube wraps the animal securely.
Firm
holding is not normal for cattle.
Aunt
Ann let me climb in the chute.
I
stayed still, was held
on
all sides by the pressure.
This
is how my mother’s cloth and body
which
used to pull me close, was meant to soothe me.
The
school psychiatrist says:
‘Do
we think we’re a cow or something?’
Is
he crazy or something?
I
am making a squeeze chute
to
keep by my bed, for daily use,
of
a size to contain a woman.
(After
reading the autobiography: ‘Emergence, labelled Autistic’
by Temple Grandin)
Melanie Penycate
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