jack martin : “world hunger solved”

 

After the second or third apocalypse, some of the remaining military scientists built several chicken catapults. The idea was to reinvent flight.  The medium was meat. 

 

Arrangements were made, and a first chicken was launched.  As it hurtled upward, the chicken squawked as if begging for answers.  Another chicken and another.  Soon the sky was full of pleading chickens. 

 

It was discovered that on re-entry the chickens would cook, so the military scientists covered each chicken before launching with butter and paprika.  Because of the chickens’ begging, scientists also affixed gags on the chickens.

 

Where each chicken landed, the impact marked the soil.  Tender meat littered the vicinity of what came to be called “the Chicken Pocks.”  Some of the meat lay on the dirt and grew hard.  Some of the meat acted as seed and grew into gagged, pleading chickens. 

 

Jack Martin has published poems in Agni, Ploughshares, Georgia Review, & other magazines.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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