As the weather becomes snowy in this country, I recall

my mother’s chicken soup: here it is: real chicken soup.

And here is the poem:

I used to go with my mother to pick chickens for slaughter

I don’t know how she chose them or brought them to the shoichet.

But there they’d be when we got to the shed by the cages,

Hanging from pegs on the ceiling and waiting to bleed dry.

I’d always focus on the plucker’s quick fingers,

The feathers flying like weightless snow

And his fiery torch burning the bumpy taupe skin

That with no effort suddenly resembled my own.

Then at home they’d be dissembled,

The organs, unborn eggs, all pieces examined.

Little spleen, fingers of fat, dear yellow feet,

Laid out on the kashering board,

aslant against the wall of the sink.

Friday evening we’d meet again,

In each of the courses:

Broiled liver ground together with rendered fat,

Blurred as separate beings and members,

Helping me to forget yesterday’s origins.

Next the soup, the essence of sacrifice refined

With orbs of yolk in a promise to come.

But it was the wings that make it all special for me,

Put in my plate with the survivor’s reminder

to fly from the market to the depth of my poems.