His mouth tastes like salt and metal. I touch his hair and it is like touching a holy monument. I go quiet from the glow of it. Below, I am still bleeding, red, redder, reddest, bleeding and kissing.

◆Only the macaque monkey has a period similar to a woman’s, with a cycle that lasts for 29 days

◆The body releases roughly three tablespoons of blood during a regular menstrual cycle

◆Before the invention of artificial lighting, it is believed women only menstruated during the new moon

EACH SPRING, THE MEAT BLOOMS. THIS year, the harvest is huge, wild, flesh bursting out from the walls of the quarry. The people in town complain about the great stench.

“Goddamn,” my father says at dinner. He wipes red dirt from his forehead.

“You’re telling me,” my brother says.

They’re both lean from working the land so hard, each day the meat harvest doubled. We go to town twice each week now, sell it all.

“Proud of my men,” my mother says.

“I want to help in the Meat Quarry,” I say.

My mother’s mouth clenches like a fist.

“What did you say?” my father asks.

“I want to help,” I say again. “I’m ready.”

My brother lets out a laugh.

“You wouldn’t make it one day out there,” he says. “Not with that damn knot.”

“Now, now,” my father says. “Let’s not pretend we couldn’t use the help.”

He clears his throat.

“One day,” he says. “You have one day in the quarry.”

WE RIDE OUT TO THE MEAT QUARRY IN the early morning sun. I sit next to my father, my brother in the backseat.

I am wearing work clothes: Overalls, boots, busted t-shirt.

“Now listen,” my father says. “Don’t be hard on yourself today. Just do your best.”

“I will,” I say.

“You also have to be careful out there,” my father says. “Helmet, all right? No bullshit.”

He passes me a thermos of coffee and I take a swig.

“Your mother is pissed as hell,” he says with a laugh.

There are knives in the coffee, but I gulp it down.

“Oh well,” I say. “I’m tired of cleaning that damn house.”

My father lets out a howl.

“Oh, you’re honest today?” he asks.

I nod vigorously and look out the window as if his laughter doesn’t light me up inside, as if it isn’t a prize, as if it isn’t a thousand golden coins raining down on me.

ONCE WE ARRIVE, MY FATHER PLOPS AN orange helmet on my head. It has a light on the front that makes the meat bright wherever I turn my head. We each grab a silver bucket.

“No fucking funny stuff,” my brother says. “We don’t need you collapsing this whole damn vein.”