The Chickening

People dance with their fingers encircling the chicken glaze, clinging to

the edges of their chicken eyes

they speak that way because they're chickens—

it's reassuring to me, the me who gets his feathers ruffled

quite easily, the me who sounds like a comb with crab legs

being plucked by a chicken with a nine-digit zip-code—



Lest we allow ourselves to fall into some kind of thimble lunacy—

the headless chicken's body struggling through the grass but unable to remember why—

and this not knowing is a part of the grace of knowing what must be done,

even the drunkest chicken cannot remember what it was like before

it's head was lopped off like someone's arm

and at this moment, which is unlike any other moment,

your own voice rises up to cluck out its last cluck.