a thousand fractures

we have one chicken who cracks her own eggs.
i find them, not smashed but with tiny holes.
at first i thought they might be hatching
but i always found the eggs empty of creature.
runny gold yolk. the white, like a fresh halo. 
the more i care for animals, the more i am certain
they all write poetry. this is hers, a little fracture
in the dark of the coop. sometimes one of
the other hens tries to guard the eggs. tries to 
make them into chicks. thus far, they have
all given up. left the eggs to rot & spoil. 
when an egg goes bad, sometimes it dries up.
becomes a fist beneath the shell. the chickens roam
the yard all day. they egg bugs & talk to the ghosts.
every once in a while, one will not return to 
the coop when they're called. my partner & i 
like to tell stories about where they have gone.
maybe eating corn in the field or, if the season is right,
raspberries in the patch of trees. one of the chickens
hides from the others. they like to try to peck 
her clean. her bumpy flesh beneath. feathers grow back
even slower than hair. i do not touch the birds often.
they are dinosaur creatures who prefer to see me
at a distance. but, when they are sick or hurt
& i need to hold them. they always thrash. i try
to calm them but i know it is no use. we are such
strange bodies to one another. still, i think of 
the flesh beneath the feathers. the broken eggs
that the others read in horror. to create is the process
of gathering fractures. yolk in our hands. 
am i in her poem? is she in mine? this morning
i harvest the unbroken eggs from their bedding. 
one of them is still warm.