by Blake Foster-Wagamon
So much depends on the cockfight in the prehistoric yard, on the chicken that grows teeth faster than I can file them down. I find myself in its poppyseed pupils that catch more colors than I do and see a terrible lizard waiting for me. This chicken laid great, green, cretaceous eggs some eons ago only to discover that they had all been eaten by something very large with very sharp teeth. This and more, I recognize as the bird sits across from me at the breakfast table, its saber tooth smile puncturing its beak. It sniffs sweetly, puggish. “What have you done to deserve color, teeth or eyes?” The bird gives no answer, only eggs, which I boil, salt, and swallow.
Blake Foster-Wagamon (they/them) is a Denver-based writer whose work incorporates satirical, speculative, and horror elements. Their work can be found in Partially Shy Literary Magazine. While Blake admires and fears chickens, as a vegetarian, they have consumed very few birds in their lifetime.