Last week it was one hundred
thousand ducks over in Aquebogue;
today, my neighbor found three dead
hens—wings limp, heads and combs swollen
like sourdough left on the stove to proof—
when she let her ladies out to forage
so she could meet the morning’s clutch.
An hour later and she’d already snapped
the necks of the other twelve, bodies piled
next to the backyard coop in a mass
of feathers—brown, white, dalmatian, beige—
still in a way I’ve never known them be.
This afternoon, under a penitent sun,
I helped her ready a pit
to accept the downy congregation,
tamped down the soil when we were done.And what of this fever in me?
Cull by Tim Stobierski | Lemon Poetry Reed Diffuser Set
Tim Stobierski writes about relationships, presented through the lens of his own experiences as a queer man. Recent poems are published or forthcoming in Chestnut Review, Gay & Lesbian Review, Baltimore Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Midwest Quarterly, Chiron Review, Ghost City Review, Crab Creek Review, and elsewhere. His first book of poems, Dancehall, was published by Antrim House Books in July 2023.
