Not Chicken

The prisoners do not go quietly

They cluck, cackle screech or crow

They kibitz argue

Square off for a fight

 In steel wire cages

 Overstuffed fallen French Aristocrats

Await execution by

Burly blood-stained men

Roasters fryers capons stewers

A future as Fricassee Marsala

Kieve or KFC

Maybe a swamp of mayo and celery                                                                                               

A mob of madam LaFarges

Bids for birds

Black and white

Red or brown

But

A lone cock topped by a regal red comb

Flashes his spurs kills off competition

Struts free among the condemned

   Is never killed

  Gives hope to the hopeless

King of the sawdust

Till out-pecked by a pullet he’s packaged and souped

 Cold Feet

The Doctor crouches at patients’ feet

giving each toe the Sherlock Holmes treatment

                                         His walls are plastered with offers

to laser away toenail fungus for $700. per foot

American Express accepted.

Endorsement coos from lobby walls

foot awards brighten corners and

foot accomplishment tomes pepper each hallway

while

fabulous foot photos dance across

the waiting room floor

His media blitz is relentless.

Interviews with Regis and Roker

Hello Nike! Hello Kobe!

He has an agent.

Six month wait list

 to use his churning feet

fish tank whose tiny terrors feed from feet and know where to stop

leaving pinker piggies to ponder.

Every six months a happy feet seminar with a 5K run

books three years out

 “Where’s the Doc?” Asks a new attendee, “he’ll be late for the run.”

“Putting on his feet”. “You mean his Sneakers.”

“No, his feet, lost the originals in ‘Nam.”

Power Seller

Flaxen hair flashing, breast implants jutting like twin torpedoes testing the limits of her top she plows through piles of pillows, polo shirts, and pottery.   

 Mascaraed eyes dart while thoughts of profit burn deep as her cameras' flash turns night into day and back again. She churns "stuff" into cash on E-bay.

Mountains of life accumulation melt like great glaciers into oceans of money. From pen knives to panty hose grandfather clock to garter belt, a worn down drill here, an Elvis bobble-head. A porcelain barber chair decked out in red vinyl, a George Forman grill or a wheezing unemployed bicycle pump. An ancient Erector set with faded photo of 1920's father and son kneeling before an unlikely mini- amusement park, a salt cellar, a bodiless suit.

A bunch of junk from basement or attic is tarted up for a party, and re-fitted by a high-heeled forty something for the world-wide electronic flea market. Waffle-iron to Wild root Crème-oil she turns someone's crap into someone's future crap. She is match maker and marriage broker for piles of stuff seeking new masters.

She abandoned the law to sell E-bay. Trading slip and fall to have it all. From power luncher to power seller.  She swapped husbands and kids to hunt junk, trading air-conditioning for dust, must, and freedom.                                                                   

The words: "Susan Smith, E-Bay Power Seller" leap from her rainbowed calling card. Susan Smith reborn leaps from her Mercedes-Benz and into her future.     

Biographical Note for Harris Cohen: Born and raised in Philadelphia, and educated at the University of the Arts with a B.S. in Industrial Design, Cohen worked for thirty years at Scott Paper Co. and other local companies in the creative field. 
Recruited by the NSA after graduating West Philadelphia High in 1956, he served 27 months in Okinawa Japan monitoring Russian and Chinese code transmissions at the height of the cold war. Beside his recent work, “Rat Tales and other Stories,” Cohen has had four of his essays published by “Enigma” and “The Storyteller”. He writes full time and is a charter member of the Radnor Writing Group.