Chickens

It takes a trunk full of chickens
to top the tank, otherwise —
a fair rate of exchange. Two birds
a gallon. Fifty sacks of feed,
forty spools of wire,
wood for the coop, nails —
one box of five hundred: 16D.
And straw, always straw.

Sometimes I hear a fox —
late at night, siphoning.
I count the loss in grubs,
run on fumes to the pump,
and —
stuff pillows with down,
red or otherwise.

Image: Erik Mclean on Unsplash