Where the Chicken Pecked

By Mary Oliver

 

It occurs to you one day

that your parents,

like your favourite chicken

they slaughtered for Sunday lunch,

will die.

 

You lie down in the warm grass

of a sunlit field and you cry.

You cry till they find you.

 

They put you to bed, still crying.

 

You hear them outside your bedroom door,

What can it be? It’s not her usual grizzling.

 

They take it in turns

to come in and sit beside you on your bed.

What is it? You must say.

They even begin to get cross.

But of course you can’t tell them.

You don’t want to hurt their feelings.

 

The next day you put it behind you,

never give it another thought

 

not until first one dies

then the other

leaving you a few years in which to enjoy

the freedom of a late orphanage.

 

You’re thinking about it again now, aren’t you?

Death. You think about it a lot.

 

You’re thinking how good it’ll be

to return to the field where you cried,

where the chicken pecked.

 

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Where the Chicken Pecked was highly commended in the African Prisons Project Poetry Competition 2013

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Mary Oliver writes from Newlyn, Cornwall.