Here, my neighbor's teenage chickens
are trying out their lungs.
There, you are already working, 
deciding on lunch.

When the sparrows
are setting things in order,
making their next-day plans-
you are long asleep.

And as you rise,
an owl whooshes past me
on great and silent wings,
his eyes black mirrors.

I do not feel his feathers
brush my cheek
until later, in my bed,
in a dream.
                        

When you pulled into the yard,
the rumbling was so deep
I could feel it in my chest.
A helmet, some shoes
and we were gone.
Flying through Wood Valley,
making the loop
past Norfolk pine windbreaks
that sheltered the mac nut trees.
Past bewildered cows,
past the Buddhist temple
with its screaming peacocks,
fading prayer flags.
There's a dip in the road
and the coolness washed over me
like an unexpected pleasure.
We're onto, then off the highway,
turning into a parking lot
that turned into black sand.
The wide puddle before us
shimmered, then exploded
into a million tiny, yellow butterflies.
                        

On the way out of my subdivision
to take the trash, I saw 
that someone had run over a chicken.
I remembered this guy.
He was small, but handsome,
with a golden chest and an iridescent tail.
I knew it was him because I could see
his colors, ground into the asphalt
looking more like an oil slick
than a living, breathing thing.
I felt my heart deflate a little,
my mouth formed into an “o”
as I sighed and turned the corner.

All the way to the dump, I fumed.
I speculated who on my block
could have been so cruel,
so inattentive. The contractor
who blasted his stereo every morning
as he raced to work. The druggies
who flew up and down the street
at all hours, no mufflers. My neighbor,
a soulless type who, instead of speaking
harshly to the man who let his dog
run up into his yard, put out a dish 
of antifreeze instead.  

There is a glut of feral chickens here,
the dump being no exception.
They gather around the gate, 
hide in the weeds with their babies,
preen and strut and croon.
As I pulled away, I saw an older Mazda
parked along the fence line.
A little, stooped over man
got out, carefully pulled a bag of feed
from the back seat and sprinkled 
this feast on the ground
like a benediction, wiry arms
outstretched, his mouth moving
in what I could only surmise
was a prayer.