Beloved Companion Loretta

Here's another free-verse thingie in response to a prompt at Poets and Storytellers United, where other people are undoubtedly posting better animal stories...When my brother and I were growing up, we had a dog of our own for a few months, boarded a pony, and bonded with other animals, but our main pets were bantam chickens. 

I always write about cats. Today 

I want to be different and remember the hens,

who, like my social cats, were most interesting

in their relationships with one another. 

Loretta was my last pet hen, and closest,

the one who used to mimic the sound of speech

and briefly managed to say the word "freebie." 

Loretta knew her male kin, and ignored them.

Also ignored full-sized chickens, male or female,

as being a different species she disliked.

(Bantams are miniature chickens. Loretta's body

was a perfect fit in the palm of my hand.)

At intervals she met a bantam rooster

from outside her own family, and became

flirtatious, even eager. Handicapped

by black-rose instead of bright red on her face,

she called and coaxed and showed no shame.

In spring, outdoors, in a family, she might have laid

eight or ten eggs a year; never very many,

and she never tried to raise a brood of her own.

Every feather she ever had was black.

We joked that they'd mistake her for a crow

if she didn't insist, in every way, she was a hen.

In fact her whole breed was developed for a look

produced by low levels of estrogen, low fertility.

When bantam roosters were not in the neighborhood

she tried to take the social role of one

by crowing in the morning and flirting with hens.

But she knew friendship, loyalty, generosity

with Silver, Sandy, Blanca, and with me.

Animals bond by sharing food. Loretta

would eat off my plate any time she could

and show me yummy pebbles, leaves, or beetles.

As a fledgling she used to snuggle in my pocket;

when cold or scared she'd fly on to my shoulder

but, like most birds, preferred not to be held.

The family kept her while I was at school,

isolated, to prevent lesbianism, and because

they didn't want to keep another whole flock.

Nobody cared about trained chicken shows

after my brother died. So Loretta was

often without companions, but she never

complained in any noticeable way; only

trilled happily when we could be outside together.

Most hens live three or four years. She lived six.

She'd become a burden on my young womanhood

but still I missed her, after her long life.