On Chickens & Roads

Except for your tragic exception,
crossing the road always leads
to the other curb.
Why then, should it be funny
that any particular foul should cross
any particular stretch of road or
that said foul should in the course
of his crossing reach the other side?
It’s not, in my opinion, very funny for anything
to be just what it is.

But maybe the joke can still be saved:
the premise of the joke is flawed—
if you think like me that chickens
are incapable of having such
teleological motivations—
when chickens peck for seed, they peck for seed
& when they cross the road they cross the road.
We need not ask why the a road-crossing-chicken
crosses the road, because his being is tied up in the crossing.

Chickens cross roads because
it is a chicken type thing to do.
Sure chickens don’t cross roads
as often as, say, pigeons or people,
but they’ve been known to cross roads
from time to time.

In my neighborhood wild turkeys trot
down major intersections.
This is funny.
The children and families know it’s funny
because they gape & smile to watch
the birds scat down the street in
every other direction as if they own the road.
But people in my neighborhood are clever &
know turkeys can’t own roads
many even recognize the dramatic irony
in the turkey’s over-confidence.

So turkeys can be funny & ironic
but chickens are completely unfunny.
These sensible birds cross the road
because good road crossing always
leads to the other roadside.
But if it doesn’t lead to the other side,
there might be some hope for the proverbial chicken.
Say the chicken decides to jive down the street
like the turkeys in my neighborhood—
that would be funny.
The chicken would think it was a turkey &
turkeys think themselves king of the road
well that’s double irony—funny stuff
but the chicken’s I’ve known tend to lack
the pretense of other common foul.

I invite you to think of other scenarios
in which a chicken could be funny,
but when I put my imagination to work
I mostly think of outcomes that produce
tragic effects for the chicken or, worse, motorists.

So here’s the punchline:
There’s a pile of feathers in the middle of the road.
What can you do with that one?