The Wardrobe’s Best Dressed: As If This Did Not Happen Every Day by Paula Lambert

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How to Trust the Moon (Chicken)

Why did the chicken cross the road?
Because Chicken saw something fit to pursue. Chicken yearns,
and his commitment to what he yearns for is steadfast.
Maybe some sweet hen—maybe a rooster. Maybe a future,
or a chance to escape the farmer’s ax.

Chicken’s eyes are always ahead of his gait:
head thrusts forward, long neck locks into place,
and while his vision comes fully into focus,
one foot follows another, catching up.

The better question, maybe, is why Chicken
didn’t look back. Why no one taught him what a boundary was,
or that journeys like his have consequences.
Maybe Chicken, spared of the ax—
who may have left hen and a couple of eggs behind—
saw only the sun rising and falling
and wanted to know where it went. Maybe he saw the moon
and dreamt the word derivative. Maybe he woke afraid.
Maybe he saw the greener pasture,
luxury condos, a convertible passing him by,
but listen:

Chicken’s eyes are stuck in their sockets.
His brain extends to his neck. Had he not escaped the farmer’s ax,
he might still have crossed that road.
He might have remembered a former life, some part of his past
he couldn’t quite grasp: tsunami’s wave heaving skyward,
earth giving way beneath his feet, the scream of a siren
right when the world went black.

Ask this: how life propels him forward.
Why he goes—and keeps going, despite the roar of doom and terror
that hits him along the way. How he follows the light
where it lands. How to trust the moon and why,
when he so often wants to cry, he so often laughs instead. 

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