T.

Living in the Hen House


But it’s cozy here, all these fluffy
bits in the air, all this straw.
Cracks between planks ain’t bad
except when corn snow pellets in --
sometimes we pack straw and mud
flat-stuck on the walls.
That’s good until the sun warms up
and it cakes off onto pine slabs
we call bed. Gets messy.
Feather dusters -- we got troughs
of ‘em-- don’t help much.

Dang chickens peck at our toenails
but there’s the egg money. Buys
a trinket or two for the wife.
She’s partial to pink hair combs
and curlers. I’ll take the occasional
sour mash, a nip before a snore.

Okay, we do brood
now and again, you know,
that gloom that overwhelms
when the fox raps his clickety claws
on the lock, jaggles it
sometimes all night, a yap and a yelp.

We try not to get our hackles up,
being that it’s so tiny a hut.
Days it gets to feeling coopish,
we take a strut out in the yard
round about dawn, sing our
little hearts out for happiness.
Just scratchin' out a life
here and it ain’t half bad.

--T. Clear