Chickens and the Moon

On the way back from work, he would always buy half a roasted chicken.

Then a rumor went around

that he had hanged himself in the park outside the city.

The owner of the poultry store couldn’t comprehend

why he had lost his best customer. Staring at the moon, he kept wiping

his sharp knife, designed to withstand an earthquake.

As for the chickens, they couldn’t care less.

Translated by Piotr Gwiazda 

“Chickens and the Moon” was published in Los Angeles Review 18 (2015).

You can read and listen to the poem in the original Polish here.