*Shortlisted for Gooseberry Pie’s 2nd Annual Writing Contest
Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash
Skunky wet chicken feathers threatened to suffocate me that morning; my mother was boiling my friend. Other mornings, my pudgy fingers poked through the hexagonal holes in the chicken wire; I unlatched the gate and stuffed my chilly digits under warm bodies finding firm ovals while my sweet friends clucked and crooned at me. But that day, my father wanted chicken for dinner. When the axe severed Sylvie’s head, her body sprinted away from the bloody chopping block while her unseeing eye fixed on me from the dirt; then my brother showed me how to carry the body back to the house by the feet, Sylvie’s toes felt like chilled strings of carrots. My wounded heart trailed behind me like the droplets of her blood, but I didn’t want my brother to call me a chicken, so I soldiered on. After dinner, I burst out the screen door away from the stench and onto the tire swing where I spun and spun and spun until I threw up chicken pot pie and everything I just learned.
MaxieJane Frazier is a writer, educator, and editor. Her work is in Switch, Cleaver Magazine, Booth, SoFloPoJo, Collateral Journal, and other places. MaxieJane holds an MFA from Bennington Writing Seminars and founded Mighty Mule Editing.
