Hen's Dwelling

Hen’s Dwelling

Alexis Ragan

Picked it up in the brush along the side of the highway
the day you dropped me off involuntarily. An egg, beating
with the warmth of a life un-surviving, shell soft in some
areas, others deceased. Still, it pumped the faintest heat into
my palm, pleading — I don’t know if I could still be saved.
Someone must have tossed it out the window, or maybe
a mother gave birth from the sky; I couldn’t decide. Fertile
plots of land tell their hens it’s time for hatching but the wicker
baskets most farmers leave out go dry. Only certain nests thread
with the silk of wood spiders attract things that fly. No one ever
told them that and that is why birds out here die. Ran the egg
under a faucet of water and a fleet of feathers came alive.

I’ve got to tell the other hens about this.

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Alexis Ragan
Poet & Teacher

Alexis Ragan is a poet and teacher. Her work has appeared in Alabaster Co and Calla Press. 

Photography by Zach Plank