B.A. GOODJOHN, originally from the UK, now resides in Forest, Virginia. Her poetry and short stories have appeared in The Courtland Review, Wind Magazine, The Sidewalk’s End, E2K and other journals.
chicken
Sunday April 29th 2001
Page told me on the phone that Chicken was in a bad way, and she was right. When she let him out of the carrier on the deck, he hopped around a bit, then hid behind the hot tub. He was featherless. Just stubble really. And his comb hung down across his beak like a heavy red bang. She told me Chicken was on the way to the abattoir when the truck hit a car. Said there were chickens everywhere. Most of them dead from the impact, others hit by drivers not expecting poultry on the Expressway at ten past nine in the morning. She said that when the warden brought him to the Shelter, no one expected him to live, but they fed him anyway, dripping water from a syringe down his beak. Page laughed when she told me the following morning she came in and found him strutting round the office. She reckons he was smiling. And you know, while I can't explain how a chicken could smile, I'm sure he looks kind of happy behind the hot tub, even without his feathers.
Saturday May 5th 2001
Chicken's staked out a claim to an empty wine crate on top of the hot tub. He likes the weather. It's May, and the sun's already hot. He struts up and down the handrail clucking at the cardinals in the Tulip Tree like he's lived here forever. He laid two eggs this morning in the woodpile. I don't know who was more surprised, Chicken or me.
Wednesday May 30th 2001
Last night, Chicken spoke to me. He flew up onto the arm of my chair, flapping those featherless wings and told me he was the reincarnation of my dead lover. I sat there staring at the damn bird, all floppy comb and strut. He just stared back, those round red eyes blinking like shutters. I told him he couldn't possibly be a reincarnation of my dead lover, since he was an egg laying she. Chicken told me all things are possible if you are a Buddhist and said I needed to get out more.
Wednesday June 12th 2002
I can't believe that Chicken's been with me now for a year. There's been a few changes. No more Coq Au Vin. It would seem somehow irreverent. He doesn’t care about eggs though. But he's not keen if I bring friends back, especially men friends. I lock him in the bathroom, but I can hear him flapping around, pecking at the soap and emptying my tampons out onto the floor. It was unattractive behavior when he was a plumber, but from a chicken, it’s just plain ridiculous. But what can I do? He knows what turns me on. The way he spreads his wings across my chest at night, his beak sharp against the soft skin beneath my ear, the sound of his ragged breathing and the smell of the dust in his feathers. What’s a girl to do?
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Copyright © 2003 B.A. Goodjohn
