Down at Willy’s Fill ‘n Go,
it takes a trunkload of chickens
to top the tank—a fair rate
of exchange. Willy’s.
Two birds a gallon.
For me it’s fifty sacks of feed,
forty spools of wire,
wood for the coop, nails—
one box of five hundred: 16D.
And straw, always straw.
Sometimes late at night,
I hear a fox siphoning
while the dogs are asleep.
Everything’s hungry.
In the morning I’ll scratch
in the dirt, count the loss
in grubs, fry up a wing or two.
Then I’ll run on fumes
to the pumps and beg Willy
for a bargain—pillows,
clean white pillows
I’ve stuffed with straw
and bloody red down.
Image: Erik Mclean on Unsplash
Published: Passengers Journal, Volume 3, Issue, June 2022
Read by: Forest VanDyke
Sweet and Bitter Greens 
I had to refresh my soul in the raw immediacy and quirky intrigue of your work again Devon. Superb example here! Hope you’re doing ok . Over here we’re producing a hologram of normality.
Ray
“Hologram of normality”! That’s it exactly. I had a lot of fun with with piece, enumerating on that scrap of green we pull from our pockets, that is, the apparatus that supports it.
D