If we pluck our worries out like pin feathers
barbed to chicken skin, one-by-one, free ruffles

from bones, will we know each other underneath
wings where every fear fanned, plumed in russet

and cream, crowded with nits and fleas?
From stripped neck to tiny clots of declawed

fists, we’re whole birds undressed. Still, we divide—
you, barbecue smoke; me, smoothed with thyme.

On cable news, our bodies spin. Heads removed,
we’re all heart and guts. But a relief, to tear

into what hid beneath our fluffed, flighty
crowns: a hollow of crushed stone. Inside,

bits of glass, flakes of plastic, all our obsessive
pecking scattered across the ground.