Painted Swirl with Green and Blue

Everything is about a chicken, a chicken, a chicken
Searching for chicken songs
One that goes something about plucking feathers
(Mama said) she learned how to break their necks in the yard
Grandma came from Lodz to Boston
My mother went to music school (in Boston)
Hair tonic, apple pies, chairs, portraits inside portraits inside frames.
My brother, eccentric, painted edges of frames with Van Gogh-esque midnight Northern Light swirlies.
I am full of noodles, noodling, and apple pie.
Put on another kettle for the accordion player’s pipe.
The sun is setting, rising, setting, rising the Titanic’s a new last chance action series,
on a streaming channel, open the hand made grape wine, leave the hair tonic.
Rolling pins, bowling pins, huff and puff alleys walking up the Mountain with polka tunes in a worm hole,
My feet on the red tiled floor of the public swimming pool,
Thrown in, no life raft, no chickens, no chickens in the pool, or on the road, or on the way back --
Just painted trees, the painted trees, the twang and spill, the spirit of the Cajun record washboard reel,
And painted clouds, and grandma’s painted moustache, and a million giggles
for Halloween, for a summer picnic, for a ghostly memorial get together singing ancestor songs.