Wheeze

by Gwen Carlson

The loveliest chicken of my flock
has started to wheeze.
I study the reason. I sink into
websites and tutorial videos, peer light down
into the unexpected openness of a chicken’s
throat.

I medicate water to kill worms,
hug amber wings against my chest
as I dispense drops on a clacking, pointed tongue,
hum lullabies while I apply oily remedies
around bony slits of nose.

Weeks later the wheezing persists. 

The chicken is tamer now. She calmly squats
when I approach, waiting for the inevitable
lift, tilting her head sideways
to watch my futile efforts
with one uncomprehending eye.
My attempts to help
are hers to endure. She talks to me
quietly in chicken trills and rumbles. But I
am human, and full of
human urgency. I am
human and I learn

as I fail. I hear
the problem rattle.
I locate the gasp with my hands.
There are systems of surprising complexity
under the feathers.
I keep trying
to cure
what I do not
understand.

Gwen Carlson is a writer based in Indiana with a background in science, currently working on a novel and poetry collection. Her previous work has appeared in Honeyguide Magazine, Consilience, Chelonian Conservation and Biology, and The New Platypus Review, and is forthcoming in Eunoia Review and Scientific American’s “Meter” poetry column.

Photo by istock/Watcha