Cecile's Chicken

How long do chickens live?
The same as us --
Until they die

How do you want me?
Soft or hard?
Scrambled,
Poached or fried?

Toast in the diner
Day shadows linger
On the jukebox, sunny side

Cecile's chicken rides
On the handle bars
One leg mangled
And probably blind
Combing the breeze
The feathers
The trees
That is the feeling

Do chickens have a Monday
In their pecking order scheme?
Do they dream, dream

Dream,
Mister Sandman
Send me a dream?

Dust in the diner
Day shadows longer
A jukebox forty-five

Cecile's chicken tries
At table number nine
To keep inside the tote bag
Cecile orders fries
Seaside in the left eye
Salt shaker right
And where Cecile is
That is the feeling

How do you want me?
Soft or hard?
Scrambled,
Poached or fried?

The jukebox forty-five
Don't accept my dime
You gotta join the wi-fi

~ Brendan Bonsack

Shirts

I have peeled
Off my shirt
Like the going down
Of the sun

Dropped into a pile
Stitches and cotton,
Ribs making faces underskin

There are voices
In the smallest hours
Who tumble from your lips
Sleepwalkers
Unbuttoned in the streetlight

My arms are not long
Enough for all of them

But I have tried,
My ribs meeting your spine,
A lover in the
Tourniquet position

There are voices
In the smallest hours
Who stumble from your lips
Sleepwalkers
Unbuttoned in the moonlight

And by the morns
Your piled shirts
Peal a
Reverie

~ Brendan Bonsack