Another reason I don't keep eggs in the house

The neighbors' chicken won't stop crossing the road.
He is strutting the same cocky, rhythmic strut
that he struts every time the traffic clears.
They must have rigged some kind of crosswalk.

The neighbors' chicken will not stop crossing.
I close all the blinds in the house
and put on a coyote/roadrunner cartoon on the big screen
but I still find myself looking at the chicken dodging cars,
clucking, clucking, clucking,

and now I see him sitting on an orange butte,
his cockscomb raised inquisitively as if Chuck Jones
had meant to draw a Tympanuchus cupido instead.

When the cartoon ends he is still crossing,
watching for the lights and still crossing,
his eyes fixed on the little white logo who is
coaxing him with his stooped posture

while the other farmyard animals watch in silent
awe at the improbable odds of survival,
the endless strutting back and forth that first established
Chuck Jones as a comedic genius.

© Justin Evans