Passing a Truck Full of Chickens
at Night on Highway Eighty

What struck me first was their panic.

Some were pulled by the wind from moving
to the ends of their stacked cages,
some had their heads blown through the bars –

and could not get them in again.
Some hung there like that – dead –
their own feathers blowing, clotting

in their faces. Then
I saw the one that made me slow some –
I lingered there beside her for five miles.

She had pushed her head through the space
between bars – to get a better view.
She had the look of a dog in the back

of a pickup, that eager look of a dog
who knows she's being taken along.
She craned her neck.

She looked around, watched me, then
strained to see over the car – strained
to see what happened beyond.

That is the chicken I want to be.

– Jane Mead (1992)
from And We The Creatures (Dream Horse Press, 2003, p. 26)

夜のハイウェイ８０で鶏満載の
トラックを追い越す時の詩

最初に私の目に飛び込んできたのは
鶏たちのパニックになった姿だった

数羽は強風に押し付けられ
檻の片側に寄り固まっていた

数羽は檻の隙間から頭を出せど
風が強くて引っ込むこともできない

数羽はまるで死んでいるかのように
諦めの中で自分の羽でその顔を覆っている

ふと一羽に目を留め
気がつくと追い越すのをやめていた
減速して５マイルもそのままついていった

彼女は頭を檻にぐいぐい押し付けて
もっとよく見えるようにと
ピックアップトラックの後ろに乗った犬のように
首を伸ばしているじゃないか

彼女は周囲を見まわした
そして私を見つけた
そして何が起きているのかと車をのぞきこむ

これこそが私がなりたい鶏だ