Industrial remains
Judy Kaber
Beneath the shadow of the new bridge where the Passagassawakeag
rides salt into the sea, a counterpane of mud covers the bones
of ten thousand chickens. Wings, thighs, legs, feet scattered
in layers among mussel shells and glistening clams. They whisper
of past lives, spread rumors of how it used to be. One skeleton,
oddly whole except for the head, remembers another life --
lying limp and full of feathers, riding a conveyor belt,
fingered by calloused hands -- and writes the story in odd runes
sculpted from claw fragments left by the moving tides.
Don’t believe it, a darting alewife cries. It’s all lies.
But the bird continues the backward tale unperturbed. Carving
a saga recalled of the slats of a crate, the careening predawn ride
through the streets, feathers gilding lawns, beaks drawn
and screeching, bumps, and brakes, and breezes from the sea.
Crazy, skinless fowl, hawks a diving herring gull.
But the beakless bard continues. Back into the chicken barn,
windowless, squinting in the hard electric light, warm
in the company of hundreds, fed, watered, watched,
hearing the tread of booted human feet, smelling the sharp
odor of acrid droppings, feeling the bite of wire against wings.
Fishing lines drop from above, even the nightcrawlers
snicker. But the bones press on, to write this legacy.
Back to the time beneath a mother’s breast, the warmth
of down, the hopeful cheep, the drying and quick pull
of air into lungs. Back again, back and back,
into the egg, the dark round beginning, the echoing sea,
fine pulsing red lines, food raw and golden, birth sounds
beating in waves, membranes of comfort, movements
like small comets, kicking thick, liquid sky.
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