Not of bees or sharks,
a chicken swarm, fighting
for dangling above them
taunting them, a slug or worm.
I remember a song
it was taught to me in elementary.
Something about chopping off heads,
how did that song go?
Nobody likes me, Everybody hates me
My dad hates our chickens
They creep him out.
What is creepy is 40 kids
singing happily about sucking out innards.
Who teaches kids about that?
So you chop off their heads
and suck out the juice
and throw the skins away
Have you ever seen a swarm?
The Hen Swallows a Worm or Slug
We scratch at the backyard together
through leaf mould, worm casings she kicks off
in a fan behind her. I use a stick
to dig, to find for her what she’s shown me
near the roots, at the edge of a step—sticky
slug on the underside of a hosta’s leaf.
How complicated she is and how resigned.
Between her beak and my outstretched hand,
the worm’s writhing. Then the long slick going
down. It fills the throat, like all that’s swallowed.
Her head chucks it back,
for the worm again dark.
The hen’s pupil dilates.
She wends and follows.
Her queries, sighs, low gurgles, the hastening
click of her nails on pavement then hungry
again into the grass. Grubs are larger
than pale yellow larvae I prize from inside
chestnuts. These mucousy blind wanderers
she eats right from my palm. Nevertheless I am
repulsed by my husband’s embrace. I turn
now from his thick belly, breasts, his interests.
A body I had clambered over, loved.
I scrabble, struggle. I cover myself.
Another sticky truth dug up
that I must re-bury—
sorry on hands and knees,
hungry and wary.
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