The Hen

hungers to whistle. She longs to hear a cry ring out
from all the bottled-up mothers. At dawn
in the barnyard, see her throat squeeze
from the effort, and her clumpy body go up on tiptoe
to reach a higher register. Hear the gravel rattle
in her craw as she croaks her egg song.
She is the ballerina of ballerinas, the queen
of torch, the damsel in distress sure to be saved
for her great beauty, her way with music
and the frilly glow of freedom in her feathers.

The rooster, on flat feet. He feels like a policeman
inside a whistle, seeing the robbers
make off with the loot. While she feels like a wife in port
watching for a ship in a bottle. O anger suffused
by clucking and scratching, O hunger that rings, dashing
itself on the stones of a common indigestion—
or else she will be asked to walk a line in the dirt
so that she might be hypnotized for the ax!
The hen knows hunger is a bag of bones. She has
a straw mattress and an underestimated egg.