chicken love

those days when i'm bent or boiling,
a squawking, chicken-legged,
scruffy disaster needing moisturizer,
vitamins, and maybe my own pen
away from the others -

what's good is how you never lay down
the red carpet, don't run to the bath with
lavender bubbles and an offer to manicure,
don't press coins into my hands for unwaranted
ice cream cones.

there's none of that furtive dialing for delivery pizza
or worse, a disappearing act
so i can stew in my own, feral juices.

no, you do the best thing.
you give me chicken love.
tease my feathers into a mohawk,
gurgle nonsense out of your throat
in an earnest attempt to outdo mine,
then spit lavishly into the sink.
you hide the moisturizer, the vitamins,
any evidence of lavender
then take my funny legs,
place them on your belly,
and turn me
into an airplane.