CHICKEN

It’s difficult to admit
that I learned
how to live 
from a chicken,
but there I was,
standing in the mud
behind the coop
reliving it all,
the screaming, the weeping,
the cheek pressed to the cold bathroom floor,
the wheel turning,
walls closing in,
when this hen—

this little hen
came clucking and pecking at the bottom of my boots
as if to say
excuse me,
excuse me,
there’s a gift beneath your feet.