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Sport 39: 2011

Semi-rural idyll

page 310

Semi-rural idyll

In the almost-country, morning opens home.
My sister is at the end
of the garden feeding chooks.

Rooster-hen crows in the coop,
struts her man-size, helps herself to a greater share.
My sister collects eggs into a bowl for
our kitchen and her cries call us running.

Half-hen, half-cock, the creature has drawn
blood before breakfast.

Our father will punish the offender, execute
the job with an axe on the stump
of a felled silver dollar tree. He will pluck and gut
prepare a broth with its body,
boil its bones for the length
of a day. We will sit as a family
eat its tough flesh with vegetables from the garden.

What will remain of the sacrifice, hung out to dry
on the netball hoop, a chicken leg with tendon and spur
which makes a thrilling show and tell at school.

There is no safe place in the food chain.
My sister and I will be given away from this house
sharing in the mutual good fortune
that our father has foretold
with the death of a man-hen.