the white chicken

you were only five or six
but you clearly
remember your grandmother
wringing a chicken's
neck with her fat
curled hand, killing
it for dinner.
it was only a few minutes
ago when
you raced around her bricked
back yard with the other
children, a yard that was more
of an alley in south
Philadelphia. how you
chased the white bird
as it clucked madly
at your reaching short
arms.
then there was silence.
and soon
after, there was dinner.