The Broiler Chicken

Her comb is no longer red.
It’s meaningless to preen.
She stands hunched as a deadpan mushroom.
Only flesh matters in her man-made coop.
.
She cannot forage in freedom.
She’s not a living thing.
There isn’t any wax to seal the pain-pores.
Bedding absorbs her vibrancy.
A dust bath, she longs for.

No cluck.
Nothing hatches.
Her thoughts transform into coral tree thorns.

Reek of feces and death dominates.
Yet her blind mates peck voraciously.

There’s neither postmortem nor FIR.
This is a recurrent licensed murder.

First published in The Literary Hatchet