Barter

We invented money
so we wouldn't have to carry around a live chicken.

Remember the yellow-scaled feet
caked with mud and dung?
Remember you could feel a heart beat
in the bundle of feathers under your arm?

You had to keep the wings tucked
or suffer an explosion of squawk and fluster.

It smelled of damp corn
and clucked softly as though talking to itself.
If alone on a gravel road, you could talk to it.
It made you wonder what you wanted.

Here's your change, your few coins,
your purchase.

Copyright © 2008 Michael Chitwood All rights reserved
from Southern Poetry Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission