Crab Orchard Review Vol. 12, No. 2, our

Oliver de la Paz
The Day After the Death of a Rhode Island Red
Amador reaches into his pocket and finds
a bright primary feather he makes into a pen.
He sits by the light of a kerosene lamp and writes:
He was a fine bird.
The long scars of his hands ache where beak-jabs
once broke his palm for grain…
where a talon dragged its cursive
over the knuckle of his index finger.
His grip on the quill weakens
when he remembers this claw:
it held the throats of other roosters
and won its life doing this.
But like Amador, it was getting old,
its neck a tired rubber band.
The once proud beak now swallows grasses,
the mouth too weak to crow.
Now the man’s head points ground-ward,
his back, heavy with knots and stooping.
When red combs once straight like a man’s back
fold, balling into a fist, it is a sign.
Dawn now without the call of dawn
blossoms into moss.
36 ◆ Crab Orchard Review