Issue # 14 : January - June 2011

Mary Austin Speaker

from The Bridge
Lovesong with Chickens

from The Bridge

all the animals come out
each morning
to walk the streets
is to exist
make noise
squint at the glare
from the sun-bleached bridge.
It is 9:28 AM
and the other bridge
is blue and grey
and steam puffs from
the electric plant
its other form of water
as the river plods her course
light slanting on the buildings
as though they had been dipped
in cream and then forgot
there is a man in a monster hat
yawning with thumbs in pockets
a child with a hat full of sherbet
colors coughing and the gum
of a thousand nervous people
pocks the platform at grand street
where a mall stretches back
to the bridge on this
midmorning nod
between frames of dreams
and the frames of others
these trains flash off and on
these others we could be
or be with all those
necks exposed heads
nodding down all tender
undersides of ears
offering themselves
for recognition
because we’re innocent
when we dream
we’re animals
when we sleep
each morning all
our animals come out
and then they go back in

Lovesong with Chickens

Perpetually off balance, perpetually urgent, chickens cannot back up,
nor can they fly, but their bones hold tiny pockets of air. In keeping

with farm gentility, and because it is summer, I offer you one.
You accept. When you sigh, the invisible exits your chest audibly.

When you hear bells ring, you think of your bedroom by the church
and you are there among my notes, transparent as a line drawing.

Reflective, you are lemonade and alabaster, tourmaline and quartz,
dirge-rock, egg-pale, equal parts obtuse triangle and convex lens.

We are foolish enough to begin counting our chickens.
We dress them in frock coats and officiate fake marriage ceremonies

while they utter their chorus of indistinguishable remarks.
They are the smallest chickens in the world, but their mock-clothing

is painstakingly detailed—each cuff aligned with its sleeve,
each neckline gracefully offering its feathered breast.

When fall arrives, I am not bothered by its decay,
its years of give and rub. I am not bothered by the feathers

on the floor. I envy the cushioned bodies of these kaleidescopic birds
and their well-tailored clothes. I am not bothered if we never know their numbers.