Early Morning Fog with Chickens

by Emily Strauss​

Layers of mist rise up the steep slopes, terraces
of young rice step up, bordered by muddy paths
thick morning fog plies the flooded
paddies, wooden houses on stilts with pigs

living below. Two dozen chickens roam free
under floors, on roofs, hidden in the fields
in the early morning damp but heard,
while a mother fights to comb a girl's hair

before school, breakfast of cold rice balls
with stringy meat left from dinner.
The chickens range on bugs and crumbs
ignoring people, call, cluck, strut in the fog

a distant cry in dawn's sleep through the open
windows, the dew soaking heavy cotton quilts
bamboo floors warping in the cool
mountain air as thick as the flooded fields.

Today I heard a rooster call in someone's
back yard, fenced in a city, I remembered.