Blue Chore Coat

I have learned to love turning a bar of soap

     and the calendar’s empty pages in my hands,

soft lather that soothes, feels like ritual, lifts away

     things I don’t need. I have learned to love

the chickens’ ways, the hesitating way they walk

     like brides down an aisle, their contented churks

and startled squawks, the way one gentle hen

     in the nesting box raises up to let me collect

the eggs she’s been warming beneath her breast,

     then curves her neck to look underneath, head

upside down under there, then registering

     the emptiness begins to make small sad sounds,

only lament a bird can make. I try to soothe, gently

     stroke the soft feathers of her back and wings

and thank her for giving me sustenance, her

     everything, every day, willing way, and I think

of my mother, only child on a prairie homestead,

     who said that the chickens were her best friends,

the way mine have become, the way lament

     has become the worn blue chore coat, fraying

collar and cuffs, I pull on every day, the familiar

     serviceable warmth it brings.