David Shook

Sacrificing Chickens to the Lake before Corn Season

Tie a brick to the chicken's neck with twine.
Ankle, wire, rock. The lake doesn't care.

I like to watch their wings' last flaps, their
feathers come loose. I like to hold my breath.

Last year the neighbor's rooster ripped off
its yellow claw, let it sink with its cinder block
anklet, knot tied tighter than tendon.

Its blood pooled flat across the lake, broken by
the bubbles of the cinder’s secret air.

We stoned & bricked the bird until it sank,
I clocked its beak off with a spinning rock
but it wouldn't shut up, kept squawking
the chorus of the thousand poultry ghosts
beneath the water: chicken skeletons, eyes picked
by fish, hens' bones bleached plaster white,
cocks perched on their chance tombstones, waiting.

First the yellow foot, eventually the bird.

I Know Your Body

(after Víctor Terán)

If you were a city
I could give perfect directions
to wherever they asked me,
I could map your neighborhoods &
catalogue your smells.

If you were a city
I would get lost every day
down some new corridor.
I would toss my map, hitchhike through
your downtown, wander your suburbs.

I Want Your Body

If you were mapped for meat
I could not choose my cut.
I am an indiscriminate butcher,
I will profit from every tiny part of you.

If you were willing
I would unravel the tangles of your flesh
slowly, like a tug-a-war of elephants.
I would unravel you
quickly, rabid dogs dividing road kill.