"Spot the Differences Puzzle":  The Butcher Shops

by Valerie Loveland

Roasts and chops hang from the ceiling on strings;
black waxed cheese dangles
too—caught in criss-cross nets.

Sausage links decorate the shops like garland.

Hatchets and knives change places on the pegboard hooks.
Rib-eyes trade with T-bones.

The scales point to 10 o'clock like stopped
timepieces.

Both butchers exist in thick cartoon lines.
Twins, they wear the same bow ties, pin-striped shirts;
handlebar mustaches top grinning lips.

One butcher carries a meat-hook,
his brother—a leg of lamb.

His apron gleams bleached white—the other sloppy:  stained
with a print where he wiped off his hands.