An older one but still needs some work.

Somewhere along the years the abattoir film's gone missing.

I think of it as the contrast between bright
paint-red and the need for black and white;
the change from shaving your everyday face
to watching the shavers finish the pigs'
bollocks in two neat bare-blade swipes.

You speak of this lost film in the abstract
with all the routine that brings, but I notice
the noise in the raising of your voice;
the jittering bloodied heads above
in your clatter-stirred milkless coffee.

And so the story travels over Radio Two
from setting out your awe for
huge carcass rollers to dead pig-weight
to the drip drip drip of blood-red blood
and how easy it was to slip.

My grandpa speaks of his death too
as if he had been with you in the making,
just another interview to complement
the colourless bloodied aprons—a hammer
to the head, a spike straight through, his own role

as brace to stop them bolting—but your stolen film
holds all the mystery for me: as art and archived footage
treads a fine bloodied line; as the contrast
between the bright paint-red of loss and the tang
of theft that's on your tongue amidst the music.