![By Viviane Sassen](https://theoffingmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/2974338009_91c07b123e_b.jpg)
Busy hands split two-day-old chicken
in half. I pull spine and rib from meat.
I make this small body, this bird, something new that must
be fed, once again, to hungry mouths gnawing at my table —
our winged loves who chirp on phones and laugh
about whatever isn’t killing them. I boil water,
add the worn chicken and burn my fingers, a small sacrifice
of renewal. Bone catches in my daughter’s throat.
This food, I gift, a resurrected carcass, gritty
with prayer to postpone dirt on the dying.