New Pecking Order

It is hard to abide
the cruelty of chickens
raised from chicks.
You give the Easter Eggers
names that curse them, 
like Curious Georgia, the gentle
smart, blond one who always 
looked up from the litter,
eyeing you like a giant god
whose hand giveth,
or let a little girl name one
something edible like Brownie,
or your ironic teenage son
dub the tan one Sweet and Sour.
Worst of all, you yourself
name three Plymouth Barred Rocks 
you can’t tell apart The Morrigan, 
after the Irish triple goddess of war. 
You even learn and then forget
how to pronounce their Gaelic names:
Macha, Nemain, Badb. 
All but one of six are tattered now,
more or less plucked.
Curious Georgia? back bald 
and bloody rumped! 
The fully feathered one, 
maybe Macha, you snatch and lock  
in chicken jail just inside the run, 
watch Curious Georgia’s
tail feathers re-grow as she struts 
and shits across the chicken wire 
roof of her tormentor who paces
frantically below, looking up.