Animal Farm

We live in a chicken coop:
just enough holes to see the light,
just enough room to make us stay
within prison walls — no real windows —
all too high up, all too small.

Through one I see a portion
branch, twigs, leaves and pretty all,
and I believe it belongs to a large tree,
craggy with age, each groove telling a story.
How it stretches to spread its arms, trapping
wind which breaks off the brittle veins. As they
fall gently to moist soil, the branches
wave to the eyes inside this
chicken coop. The wires strangle

though they don’t even touch our
numb and thickened skins. We can
hardly breathe. Punishment on our
backsides — they ache upon the
chocolate coloured chairs that never change,
even with time. The rusty legs with
missing rubber hoofs: a dying horse
with a wounded leg, breathing its last ….

Who screams? Not the tables, not
the chairs, not even living things
surrounding inanimate objects.
Intangible souls of tangible bodies —
they pray for the coop to crumble.

© 1995 Sherrie Lee