Chickens in the Air

The chickens are nearing the clouds

When the thunder strikes

The chickens huddle together

In the space the basket provides

They’ve never ridden

In a hot-air balloon until now

One flaps its wings

And considers a jump

But the distance to the ground

Would surely kill it

Chickens can often be unintelligent

But rarely are they suicidal

The chickens cluck and fuss

But the thunder subsides eventually

As the balloon moves towards a mountain

They flap as hard as they can to catch a glimpse

Rock formations and cool mountain air

Are all they can take in before their ride sails on

The balloon should have gone down hours ago

But somehow it stays aloft

One chicken keeps to itself

Not wanting any part of the trip or its socialization

A drop of rain lands in the basket

Causing a commotion

But where is the rain coming from?
The thunder is long gone

On the ground, a farmer finds an empty yard

And a yellow square where his balloon used to be

A few miles away from him

A dog rolls an egg down a hill

The absence of a chicken

Is not noteworthy but it is noticeable

The absence of a ten chickens

Could be cause for concern

The balloon hovers for a bit

Over a small island in the Pacific

The chickens cannot possibly have traveled that far

But they hear the singing of a whale who they know lives far from them

At night, they try to enjoy the presence of stars

And the sound of cities sliding further and further away

When the heat from equatorial spots becomes too much

They flap at each other to create little windstorms

They are colleagues--whether they like it or not

And the only way they’ll reach home again is together

Ten went up

Ten will come down

But the balloon only seems to go higher

And the stars only seem to get closer

One chicken makes a wish on the moon

And the next day there are only nine chickens in the basket

Nobody knows what happened to the tenth

Or even which chicken it was

Each day after that

A different chicken goes missing

They all try to take turns staying awake in pairs

To prevent the loss

But when morning comes

They all wake up not remembering having slept

And there’s a single feather

Where a bird should have been

When the balloon finally lands

In a graceful descent

It does so in a field

Near Sussex

The farmer who finds it

Is nothing like the farmer back home

When she approaches the basket

She thinks she hears clucking

How ridiculous, she thinks,

My mind is playing tricks on me

Btu when she peers in

She sees ten feathers

And two perfect pearly

Eggs

The farmer takes the eggs inside

And places them on her kitchen table

Not sure if she should crack them

Over a frying pan

And not sure

Why she shouldn’t

The eggs sit there for a few days

And on the tenth day

A crack splits each one

Down the middle

And the farmer wonders

What will come out

Knowing it should be one thing

But it could be something else

Altogether