The Gizzard of a Chicken
Essa Ranapiri (University of Wellington, New Zealand)
THE GIZZARD OF A CHICKEN is a muscular organ
that acts as teeth
for the bird, as it pecks its way towards energy
and action pulled out of that energy
in the gizzard, any food the chicken has consumed will be
ground down, stones singing a tune of digestion in the pit
acids rubbing their caustic nature all over the solids
if the solids can be broken down at all
and if they can’t
the discarded coil of metal from the enclosure the chicken
has lived its whole life in
will find a way through the gizzard itself, leaving the chicken to die
it pecks at a wooden post, a claw sighs through the dirt
wings ruffle
essa ranapiri /// they-them-theirs /// “whale & harpoon” as poetic metaphor for /// the ?self?
no certainty like un /// certainty they will fight write until they are dead
[has words in Mayhem, Brief, Geometry, Poetry NZ, Starling, Them]
