Oh, Donald! Was it you? The duck? That got roasted? Rest a bit. In peace. We do ducks, but not the way you think. What the duck, don’t get us wrong, come to the party. We do chickens, we do t do ducks. But chickens, even roasted, are winners. The chicken, however deeply broiled, is a winner. It needs a roasting. And once the roasting is done, you may sing paeans to what the chicken was before it got roasted. Lovely chicken. Clucking chicken. Roosting chicken, queen of the coop. Everything that happened, the chicken did. Even all the shit it shat. It was the shit that the chicken shat, you see.

So what if it has gotten a bit roasted now? And even so, look how tasty it is. Call my chicken chicken? Oh, how could you? It was my chicken, I loved it, and therefore don’t say poor things of my chicken. No, that’s not on. It wandered? Yes, it did. But perhaps. It strayed? Yes, it did. But perhaps. It laid dodgy eggs? Yes, it did. But perhaps.

And so? It was my chicken. Mine. I wouldn’t hear a thing about it, not a poor word, you don’t know, I do, and of course I do, it was my chicken.

That chicken was a chicken, no more. It pecked beyond its need, it clucked beyond its worth, it fluttered beyond its wings. Came a day, it got caught. A fringe of its feather, a part of its wing. It got caught. While it preened, while it clucked and paraded. A chicken, an entitled one, spreading a bit beyond its allowance. Lo! Caught! Now? Duck!

Look for ducks. Where are the ducks? Are there any ducks? Is there a duck I can duck into?

Not easy. Oh no! Do not misunderstand. It cannot be easy. Turning ducks to chickens. BlondieDucks to chickens, no less. But it happens. Trust me.

Flock. Flock. My eggs, my beloved eggs, don’t poach me now, or boil me. I am your chicken.

Remember? You are mine, more than I could ever be yours.

The thing about chickens is, you have them, or they have you. They make you slave to what they lay. What you love to boil, or poach, or fry, or beat and make an omelette of. You had the eggs? Really? The chicken had you. And it is going to keep on having you. Teasing you around the barn, luring it to what it lays in the hay, stuffing you with the gifts of what it can only reject and clucking away around the place, laughing at you. Look at you! You filled out fool, you thought you had me? You only had what I no longer had any use for, what I needed desperately to eject. Eggs, you stupid egghead! You don’t know what l’m talking about? Well, cluck-cluck, why am I not surprised?
You’ve been looking, I know.

You’ve been gobbling my eggs and you’ve been looking. At my legs. At my stride. At my pride. At my thighs. At my breasts. You have been, haven’t you? You’ve been eyeing my neck as well, my long neck, my neck that turns this way and that, my neck that swivels all the degrees that you can count, this way and that and all the way round. You have been, haven’t you? You’ve been lusting after me, your appetite fed by my eggs. What the duck!

The truth is, I am an imitation of who you think I am. I am not what you believe me to be, hah-haaaah, cluckettty-cluck. Don’t get me? Even having got me? My eggs and my every part other than my feathers that are soaked in my blood because they were used to wipe it? Well, well, cluck-cluck, what the duck, and just as well. I am not chicken, I am flesh and bone and tendon and feather. When I become what I am to you, I am no longer chicken. Do look for a word. I am the sum of my parts to you, measured, weighed and paid for. But I am forever more; I am the imagination of your appetite, I am the one whose appetite will not end. In you. Get that?

My chicken, mine. Mine to gobble, yours to admire and lust after, chicken all the same. Skewered. Or baked. Or roasted. Or strung and quartered and had, any which way. What’s a chicken, even mine, to say or do? What the duck?

Oh my diddledee hen
Here I come and my men
I’ll count from one to ten
To have you, do tell me when.