Count backwards from 99.

What’s the first thing you remember waking up?

Back from permanent loan, a temporary tattoo on your forearm,

you pour whiskey over ice, two fingers deep—

the temperature on the front of the local bank the first sign

that something was amiss in the month of October.

Jobs are coming or so the local newspaper promises,

so you turn your truck towards Walmart with just enough

credit limit remaining to curb the hunger inside you.

There’s a place on the edge of town where deputies watch

the speed drop 10 miles per hour and write tickets

to the wary, the uninvited— a reminder of who sets the rules,

who follows them.

There are parts of the wine bottle that linger

in a hand-pouring, the simple act of turning

at the wrist that hearkens back to a time made complex

with class and duty, the first throw of light

from a flashlight is clumsy and random, a sweep

of generalities until the focus sets in and

everything put on hold for the duration.

Costco is building a $450 million chicken facility

in Nebraska because corn is cheap, and it’s hard

to stop a chicken from reaching nine pounds these days.

Each 15-year contract with a farmer guarantees

a best-case scenario of $60,000, just high enough

to avoid accusations of slave labor, just low enough

to keep the credit cards flowing: one man’s opportunity,

another man’s financial noose, the only winner,

a chicken rotisserie dinner for $4.99.

The store guarantees no animals were harmed

in the making of this meal, except for the obvious footnote,

rather a chicken leg, rather a shopping cart of excuses

elucidating why this guy cares more than the other guy

who also sets cooked chicken under heat lamps every afternoon.

At the edge of the field a woodpecker has died and

the limp body is discarded in the woods. No salt,

pepper and paprika rub, no postmortem to determine

what happened and why. Caring is restricted to those

monitoring the supply chain, no evidence of chicken flu

or worse.

Nebraska is a long way for anyone to drive, even PETA,

so the chances of anything going viral other than viruses

is slim. Plastic tools of various shades on a kitchen

counter. Everything depends upon a red-and-white checkered

tablecloth, a can of cheap domestic beer, glistening

with condensation.

Call it what you will. At what point does a chicken stop

being a chicken, never having stepped on dirt or eaten

a bug, its only act one of being born in cage, the very

subject’s supposition turned inward and collected

as thoughtfully as eggs, swollen reminders.

The sun slides in a frying pan. Its outcome is fixed as

the spatula tests the edges and turns over.