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Chicken Killing

I was 5 and the chickens were my friends

I would pull an ear of corn from the crib
hack it against a brick and cry    here biddy biddy biddy

and they'd come running to peck between my bare
toes with beaks hard and smooth as sanded oak

when the crabapples rotted and fell off the tree into the yard
they would gobble them up and get drunk

then dance the crabapple dance  cluck
and strut, bump into each other, fly into the side

of the henhouse and stagger around laughing at chicken jokes

I laughed at their jokes    I partied
hard with those hens

one afternoon when we got back from
Hebron Baptist Church where you got to fan yourself
with funeral parlor fans

Uncle Wid went to the chicken yard with an ear
of corn    here biddy biddy biddy    he cried

and when the chickens ran up to peck
he grabbed two by the neck and swung them
over his head like sacks    wap    wap    and their heads
were off in his hands and their bodies were still

flying around the yard because no one had
told them they were dead
yet

Mary Mackey