I

saw my grandmother

Grab a chicken by the head

Sling it around

Until it was dead

(we had helped to chase it down

as we giggled and screamed and clowned)


then

Its headless body

Bloody and aimless

Shivvered and flopped

All over the yard

And then it was plopped

gutted and headless

when it was its deadest

Into a pot

Of hot

water

de-feathered

and cut

into small pieces

and floured salt and peppered

in proportoions that pleases

and fried in lard

rendered from the hog

that laid

(once upon a time)

in

that same back yard