Andrew Merton

Chickens

A man said to me
“Let’s get these chickens registered.”
There were no chickens.
The man had a tiny car.
We drove underneath the traffic,
looking for an airport.
”The only place you can register a chicken is Missouri,”
he explained.  We couldn’t find the airport
but he didn’t mind.
The important thing, he said,
was to keep trying.

 

Andrew Merton has published nonfiction in The New York Times Magazine, Esquire, Ms. and elsewhere. His anthology In Your Own Voice was published by HarperCollins in 1995. He teaches English at UNH, where he writes poetry under the guidance of two wonderful colleagues, Charles Simic and Mekeel McBride.

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