An Average Night of Male Comradery

by Brendan Dyer

I heard that people eat chicken wings to feel something communal

Because I guess sucking meat from marrow,

Like a chittering rodent-thing is a culture found mostly in a sports bar.

Somewhere in the town you grew up in.

But I also heard that chicken beaks can break through ice,

So when you talk to a chicken,

She must know that what you have to say is

Fowl.

Though you can’t know that

while chewing at her,

finding just the meat between her bones.

She licks her slender lips, sucking at her bird-tongue,

and wonders what you’re on about when you ask

to eat her meatless arms

then after a slow roast peel her skin

which shields her breast you so desire—you sick fork-surgeon, searching

for the succor of a

Sultry

Poultry

chicken lick,

To feather gently at your fancy, lather in B-B-Q and funnel down your gullet

yes,

yes.

It’s chilling really that a chicken beak can break ice.

If only just the surface before shattering on its own.

You might not think of that though when

your tongue and teeth are tweezing,

A hair-thin strip of flesh from between parts of her you don’t care about.