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Keeping Hens<\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n She wore yellow Marigold <\/em>gloves<\/p>\n to catch them, needed fleece-lined<\/p>\n rubber between their feathers<\/p>\n <\/p>\n and her fear – the aerated bones<\/p>\n hollow as straws, the flapping flightless<\/p>\n wings – that carried them no further<\/p>\n <\/p>\n than the shed roof when she shooed them,<\/p>\n to perch in the eaves away<\/p>\n from the murderous fox.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mornings they would scramble<\/p>\n leap-frog over other marron backs,<\/p>\n wobbling liver combs and beady eyes,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n bobbing on string necks, like prisoners<\/p>\n at the wire, waiting for the steaming mash<\/p>\n and corn she brought in a white basin.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n She hated the giblet rawness, the scraggy<\/p>\n throats of those hen-pecked by the flock.<\/p>\n He wondered why she bothered<\/p>\n <\/p>\n heaving the heavy meal-sacks, collecting<\/p>\n kitchen scraps, could not share<\/p>\n in the romance of it, their own fresh eggs.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Still she persisted; squelching ankle-deep<\/p>\n through March mud to collect<\/p>\n a mottled clutch, washing the streaked<\/p>\n <\/p>\n lime-white shit, the caked dirt,<\/p>\n from warm shells beneath the running tap<\/p>\n as if they were all her own work.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n