THE EGG LADY

She looks like a sad chicken
squatting on the doorstep
of a broken-down shack,

amidst a pile of rust,
in a weed-strewn yard.
Drifting dust does not blow away.

A bruised soul sits
in stale gusts of dreariness.

“KEEP OUT” is awkwardly
scrawled on tumble-down,
weather-worn plywood.

The stench of chicken shit
and an overflowing outhouse
overwhelms the stagnant air.

“Aint got no eggs today,
hens too busy fluffin-up
draggled feathers to keep cool.”

Scrunched in a sea of sadness
she waits in front of her musty shed,
with no hint of a hissing drop of rain.

Her emotionless face is wrinkled
beyond her years, the voice
of grinding poverty mumbles to herself

over and over again, “It wasn’t the chicken
or the egg that came first. It was the rooster.”