Poem: Chick

She walks around with crusted feet

Around the feces that makes her keep

Her beak down,

Solemn and low.

Amongst the thousands of white birds of snow,

Too close to call she sees her mother

Lying down

Smothered with chemicals.

Toxicity reaches all time highs

As her own feet begin to buckle

Under the weight of her protruding belly.

She sits next to the one who birthed,

Taken aback by the cage she resides

Not knowing why,

Not knowing how

Someone could make this pain so vigilant,

So voluntary,

So on purpose;

Yet her feet get crunched under her chest.

White birds of snow begin to unrest.

A light is shown through the door.

Bundles of boots storm around her head

Grab her by the neck,

Gloved,

Thrown in a truck with thousands of white birds of snow.

Infinite miles pass

The hail, the snow, the wind, the rain–

They all pass without much disdain.

Water and food lacks of presence

As thousands of white birds of snow lose their breathing.

Again in confinement,

The room is hot;

The ringing of slaughter in the air reeks with the present.

The ones who lived are taken and shot.

The survivors are thrown into seemingly empty pots

Until the scalding hot oil begins to rot

On her feathers and on her face.

She dies slowly because that’s what she was manufactured to do.

That death was the reason for her living