“Chicken” by Rudy Thomas

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In the Appalachian coal camp
at Mine # 8 one year on Easter morning,
the owners sent a box full
of yellow chicks for the boys & girls
to take home & raise in solemn trust.

A boy chose the escaped one under the ramp
at the Company store, a forewarning
of true grit he figured. The john bull
delivery man laughed & wind swirls
kicked up black coal dust.

The yellow chick grew into a white
leghorn rooster. All the boys pestered it
so it learned to fight at the drop of a hat
& then hop on top of that hat & crow & crow
as tho it were Joe Louis reincarnate.

The irony of it all was that the polite
name of the rooster was Chicken. It
whipped everything—everyone tit for tat
fighting house to house & standing toe
to toe, a champion totally incarnate.

The delivery man from the Company Store
learned to stop in front of the house & honk.
The mail man left letters or junk mail down
at the Store. Neighbors began to stay away.
Only the mean boys who taught him to fight

could come to visit & knock on the door.
Chicken spurred the high bred cat, a Tonk-
inese, & his reflection in glass, his crown
unchallenged on any given day
or in any fighting pit at night.

“That’s it boys!” the father said
when Chicken flogged the old neighbor
woman until her legs bled.
He went inside for his double barrel
& shot old Chicken graveyard dead.

-Rudy Thomas

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