Hens

The chicken died on Tuesday morning. Bewildered by the darkness storming her pea sized brain, the hen circled clockwise, gave half a cluck, and fell full beak into the crown vetch beside the cow barn. From the front porch of the farmhouse, Lyddia Cambridge watched the sunrise and the chicken's demise and said nothing about either. There was no one left to hear and besides, she didn' t think she knew how to make words anymore.
Lyddia tugged her sweater closed adn tucked her pajama bottoms into her barn boots. As she started through the wet grass toward the cow barn, she tried to remember what she used to know about dead birds. Something about the mites migrating to the outside of the feathers as the body cooled. Something about bare hands and disease and daddy calling her ugly names. Or was that Stewart?
The hen, like Stewart, had died of being old. The rooster, like Stewart, had gone first. Even when he had become to anile and lazy to mount the hen, he crowed and strutted. When he lurched and fell over sideways, the hen contentedly pecked insects from the dirt around him. Lyddia liked to think those bugs had been especially sweet and succulent.
She carried the hen to the manure pile behind the barn. She'd bury it tomorrow or the day after. There were no neighbors near enough to notice the malodor of death and she was anxious to get back to the house. It was getting dark.