Thoughts While Watching My Mother Make Dinner
by Samantha M. Sorenson
The dead chicken’s disconnected nerves
wouldn’t have felt the processing
when feathers were ripped from succulent flesh,
joints were broken, and sweet meats were bound
in braided twine. She inspects the evidence of dismemberment,
and I think, “It’s whole life led to this.”
Thighs—severed—downed in lemon pepper
and panko crumbs. She lays them down into hot oil
with her delicate hands. How can it be
that she also raises pets of the same breed
down in the coop? That there, a different heat
incubates babies, and lamps dry the already hatched
down feathers of creatures that will soon lay down
their own eggs to be collected and candled,
which is to say, checked with light for the dark spot of life
that I used to think were fetal heartbeats
but are really just the beginnings of bodies
that one day will hiss in cast iron on a stove.
If I cusped candled egg to ear, could I hear the rhythm
of hearts beating? Would the tempo sound
the same as my mother’s familiar lub-dub
when I hug my ear down against her back
and listen? Or, might her cadence be replaced
by down-down, down-down, down-down.