and then dessert

my grandmother
would go out

to the bricked back yard
and grab

a chicken
from a coop,
fat and white.

thick with feathers,
and ring

it's neck like it was nothing.
a quick loud snap
and the struggle was over,
then

she'd sit out
in the shade of her olive
tree, sipping red
wine,

plucking, plucking,
until the skin

was bare, dimpled pink,

stark white.

we watched from the window.
our round faces
in our hands.
we saw

the blood, the violence
of dinner.

but it didn't matter, we
had seconds,

and then dessert.