Fluff, dust, and burbling, then pecks, beaks, and squawks in the coop, dense with feathers. The soft creatures startle and ferociously nip. The man in the small henhouse, a soft-voiced stranger, was a grandfather I had met once before, his glasses square and reflecting my gaze. When we picked him up in the Pentagon, they saluted. My mother was afraid to let me go to gather eggs, nervous as a hen, she held my hand for a moment and then let go. He slipped a hand into mine and gently pulled. Inside the coop, he slid his palm under a chicken without even ruffling her as he drew out a warm, blue egg. He put it in my hand. I thought of fried eggs. I didn’t know it could have grown to be a chicken. Then the quiet man with poor eyesight took my hand and we stole away back to the house and my glad mother. I never saw him again.
Rachel Dacus’s books are Gods Of Water And Air, Earth Lessons, and Femme Au Chapeau. Her writing has appeared in Atlanta Review, Boulevard, Drunken Boat, and Prairie Schooner. She raises funds for nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area and is writing a novel involving the great Baroque sculptor Bernini.