Originally published in Carve Magazine, Fall 2018

Hen-Eater

Frighten them if you must but know that they

will go running from you as a herd of little

simpletons shaped like crescent moons only

crescent moons with surface sinkable for

fingers to hide in when held, cradled, irregular

feathered bodies (how strange) always pointing

upwards at both ends, undignified, and you

running at them. What was it? I need you

to understand, for once: they’ll run

simply because you are body

in motion, not because you shot

more deer last season than you

ever shot before you said which actually

isn’t hard because you never

used to before anyway

or you saw the dimple in your chest this morning

in the mirror and saw it disappearing

under muscle, the walls of the cleft

closing in on a little loved valley—

little-loved valley. Little valley, loved.

It’s both, I’m sorry. When we

got chickens I thought one

would come in the house to be a

small white dear and you thought

we could get eggs and then later said

“if there’s no eggs we can kill them” and

I laughed. But of course

nothing comes up quite the way it seems

it will and even though none ever come

into the house without shitting

on the floorboards we do get eggs

just the amount to keep them

alive useful and of value to us still

I worry it won’t be enough for you

the way you are now never squinting

even into the sun but did you know

that a hen placed in a coop overnight

will wake up thinking it is her home