Antelope Valley Times
I cup my ear to your chest and
wait for a wind chime,
but man does it sound oily in there.
So it is. Deep-fried, a clucking shame.
Poor Randall Butterbean: a bird between lucks.
But isn’t this fine? Isn’t it swell?
Wouldn’t you rather be kettle-cooked than smeared under a
rain boot?
Sidewalk paté, some years later, with no pension to speak of?
Don’t worry, my chicken—
for the vigil, I’ve hired the best
one-man-cockroach-band money can buy!
(So the talent is thin, so what?
You know how cars pile up in the desert.)
Anyway. Cockroach maestro,
won’t you sing our sweet boy downstream?
Do you think he quivered/
Do you think he bled/
Wings pinned down/
To a hospital bed/
Did Jesus pass him/
In a white Ferrari/
Or did his heart just go POP!
Copyright © 2026 by Elizabeth Crawford. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on May 13, 2026, by the Academy of American Poets.
“This poem was in part inspired by the well-known joke set up ‘Why did the chicken cross the road?’ I turned this phrase over in my mind until it coughed up some sorrow, though I never want to completely do away with humor or lightness. Life may be cheap, but there is always grace, and often a song.”
—Elizabeth Crawford
Elizabeth Crawford
Elizabeth Crawford is a Filipino American poet and critic. Her film criticism has been published in Screen Slate, Washington Square News, and elsewhere. Originally from Los Angeles, she lives in New York City.