Category Archives: poetry

by Sorren Briarwood a story we still tell: you, pregnant, craving, sent my father to Nando’s with clear instructions: bring back a whole chicken. he, suspecting hyperbole, familiar with how you pecked at your food (“you eat like a bird,” people would later say the same thing about me) came back with half a chicken.Continue reading “hatchling writes to mother hen”

by Olivia Mettler My sisters andI are chickens waiting forgrain at our father’s manure lickedfeet. Starving—afraid to live life clampedin labor’s jaw. My lips turn beak when I speaklike my father; unsure of what’s made to be shared.He forgets his children when mouths don’t break openfor food. He’s 53 now or has turned back toContinue reading “My Father Doesn’t Know I Wasn’t a Bird When I Was Born”

by Angel Kolady Yesterday, I turned vegetarian;I looked at the sky,At the clouds of my pastWhite feathers, a beak.What is that?You asked me.I don’t know,I said.Your eyes up there, squinting,Why are you lying?Four years old, andAlready looking for answersFrom things that only produce questions.Bak, bak, bak.So, what choice do I have anyway? Angel is aContinue reading “Kozhi”

by Ruchi Acharya Courage isn’t in counting chicksbefore their fragile shells collapse—it’s in feeding them hopewhen they’re trembling in your hands.Have you asked yourself this in a while? Hope is a mother hen;even in storms she spreads her wings,a shelter stitched of feathers.Will you do the same for me? In fear, the bravest scatter,like startledContinue reading “Murgi’s hymn for the weekend”

by Pemily Maybe I’m just romanticisingThe motherhood of it allBut wouldn’t it be just a dreamTo be nestled by her, to be heldTo hear her purring in pure joyWhile I curl up for the fall She is broody almost all the timeIt’s her purpose and greatest giftThe gift of loving each in her nestAnd notContinue reading “Mother”

by John Grey It’s springand its defiant colors,from the barn roofto the sods of earth.Fog spills into rain.Cattle chew the newness.Bored horses almostkick their door down.Dog rounds up chickensinto someplace dry.It’s time to churn the soil, to seed.The world rolled over into sleep.But now it’s awakening,rubbing its eyesuntil the sun breaks through.Cooped up so long,theContinue reading “Spring in Iowa”

by Ashley C Knowlton they stretch like dancersthe ducks and chickensstretching one side at a timeright then left orleft then rightsteadily reaching their leg back withballerina toes pointed,Their wing gracefully fans out and backallowing their feathers to greet their feet—about the only time they appear delicate Ashley C Knowlton’s poetry has been published in aContinue reading “Like Dancers”

by Valarie Hunter Emylia had Claudesince she was a toddler,when her tiny hand fit perfectlyaround his fuzzy neck.Her older sister preferred dolls,but Emylia had her stuffed chicken,brown, bug-eyed, his wingsso comforting to rub and twizzlethat they developed bald patches,his red felt comb and wattleso enjoyable to suck ondespite Mom scolding herfor being disgusting. Claude wentContinue reading “Emotional Support”

by Marc Darnell I expected a little puppyor a fresh kitten, but… no.My therapist arrived at mydoor, with a farmer. She’sa good girl, and she don’tlay eggs no mo. He heldit like a baby. She’ll followyou like a duckling. I saidnothing. What can you say?When they left I researchedwhat she eats. Papa Googlesaid they eatContinue reading “Therapy Chicken”

by Ariel Langen Let there be pink chickensMay chicks come pecking and pushing from their shellsDown feathers pasted deep magenta to their skin from the egg-gooLet red-rooster father and white-hen mother groomSquealing newborn birds into fluffy, rosy dandelion fuzzes Let there be pink chickensNot only dyed pink by dragon fruit and pomegranate juiceBut may theirContinue reading “Let Chickens Be Pink”