Trumpet

Chris Ellery

January 16, 2021

I went to Market Street Inauguration Day

intending to grab a couple of steaks, a bottle

or two of good Chardonnay. The crowd was bigger 

than the one on the National Mall, dog eat dog. 

Passing racks of vinegar and bread, 

I shot straight to the Meat Market. Masses 

of carnivores were there ahead of me 

electing entrees. You could tell by the tonnage 

of meat on the shelves how easy killing is 

for us. I pushed through the mob, stretched, 

and reached under the shelf, noodling for a family 

pack of New York strip, thick cut. But hooking 

my hand on something sharp, I jerked it back 

and saw the blood. Before I was able to staunch 

the flow, a plump little drop dripped on the wrap 

of a five-pound roast, spattered and spread 

like a trumpet blast. The sound of it pierced 

the clouds of Sinai, Jericho fell, 

and in the twinkling of an eye the food chain 

reversed its politics. The store became 

a shambles. Pork, chicken, mutton, beef 

threw off packaging, flew out of the coolers. 

Sausages burst, bouillon cubes unwrapped 

themselves while cans of soup and bottles of soap 

exploded, flooding every shopping lane. 

We never think how much we are touched by forests 

and seas—there was hardly a thing for sale in that store

not partly made with some animal part. 

Creatures arose from goo, reclaimed their entrails

and reclaimed their tails, reassembled, somehow,  

bone and fur and feather, fin and scale, 

and filled the place with zoological noise 

and zoological smells. Some shoppers panicked, 

upset their carts, and fled the store. I stayed 

where I stood with bleeding hand and watched 

cows come together part by part, rump roast 

and rib. Boneless chicken recovered bones, 

ham hocks and hams again became pigs, veal 

became calves, mutton sheep. Salmon and cod, 

lobster and shrimp spilled from boxes, leapt 

from ice to breathe like mammals, swim in air. 

I saw an emu, buffalo, and even a dolphin

(its atoms erupted and joined from can after can 

of tuna fish). Seven of the animals formed 

a band. The first was a catfish pierced with hooks, 

a good hundred pounds, cool as a beatnik, 

dripping Mississippi crud. The next 

was a hog wearing bacon enough for three super stores. 

The third, a nag, galloped over, un-rendered,

from the Pet Food aisle. A great, shaggy bison

came fourth, stoic as a shaman from 

some high plains myth. That dolphin I mentioned 

before was using flippers like hands and had fixed

on its face a leviathan grin. As if to give thanks

a gobbler was sixth, a big roasting hen, her breasts

sufficient to feed an army of sinners. The last 

of the band seemed also the first—a snowy lamb 

afloat in a nimbus of rapture—agnus dei, 

I absently thought, having been bred in the One

True Church.  Each of the seven carried a horn

made only of air, and all together they 

began to blow ripe Cornucopias 

of Dixieland jazz. Soon all the animals started

dancing, some upright, hoof and claw 

(fish on their tails), all whimsically whirling

in wild arabesques, laughing, clapping, kissing. 

They danced in the Meat Market. They danced 

in the Bakery, danced in the Deli, danced 

in Dairy. In Frozen Food, they—the formerly 

frozen—danced. They danced in the Pharmacy.

They danced in Cosmetics. They danced and danced. 

Then, moved by the beat of victory, they started

to march, dancing and marching Mardis Gras style 

to the blast of brass. That lamb, blowing trumpet, took 

the lead. It led the animals down the aisles 

of the store to the automatic doors and out

onto the parking lot. Chaos outside. 

Day turned to night, cars on fire in thick

black smoke, which parted like water clearing a path 

for the beasts as they marched to the streets 

where throngs of more animals flowed in step

through the burning world. Some were wild, 

some were pets, some were even presumed extinct. 

They marched away through wreckage on the beat

of jazz, the rhythm of joy.  Soon all were gone,

and the echo of music faded away in the sky.

Only humans remained. The mob was stunned. We stood 

each alone, abandoned, like sense, in the hiss 

and the mess of this inaugural apocalypse.

I was in shock, but shocked as I was, I felt pain 

in my hand. After all that, the thumb that I cut, plump 

and pale as a drumstick, was still throbbing and bleeding. 

When I looked around, everyone else was looking at me, 

their eyes filling already with lip-licking lust. 

Chris Ellery is author of five poetry collections, most recently Canticles of the Body and Elder Tree. He has received the X.J. Kennedy Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Dora and Alexander Raynes Prize for Poetry, and the Betsy Colquitt Award. A member of the Texas Institute of Letters, Ellery teaches literature, creative writing, and film criticism at Angelo State University.