Arsenic Lobster poetry journal
Issue Seventeen
Summer 2008
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The Dance of Curb Chickens
Joseph Olschner

For a time,
they scattered
like cotton
popped from a shotgun,
running like leaves
flung from a tunnel
as the rubber and steel rims
of a green Packard
busted
through what had been
a quiet pecking space
but for the road shoulder roar
that would push
beating wings and feathers
back to the packed dirt yard
under ribbons of wet clothes
hanging in the sun.

For a time,
my curbed visit is a quiet one,
rolling into the sidewalk silence
at my once lived in house,
the yellow one where she still lives
and from where she sends the kids out, garnished
in weekend back packs
and happy smiles for our weekend journey.

For a time,
The wings that flutter here are not feathered
but hang beating like flapping clothes,
drying and waiting to be taken in,
only now
there are less baskets
for them to covet,
less hands to gently crease the seams
and fold them for their own
far flung scattering.

About Joseph Olschner

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