Land of the Giant Chickens

The tunnel feels familiar
but still makes both of us uneasy –
dark, no lights, only wide enough
for single-lane traffic, the kind
that gives you a wait or go signal.

We emerge with all limbs and skulls in place.
When the untempered rays of July invade,
accentuate the grooves in our skin, our gray,
the driver eyes me in the rear-view mirror,
glances over his shoulder at Jumelle,
a smiler from a mother with a foible,
but no lasting gift, for foreign men.

We know the look.

"How long you marry?" he asks.

We grin, first at each other, then him.
"An eternity," we recite in unison.

He keeps silent the rest of the way.

A sign in front of the small building reads
La Tierra De Los Pollos Gigantes
¡Vea las huellas antiguas!

We buy our tickets, go inside.
A six-by-ten-foot plate of Plexiglas
in the middle of the floor covers
a slab of what could be limestone.
Two sets of footprints, a dozen in all,
march along side by side, each the length
of one and a half of my feet: three front toes,
one toward the rear – more archaeopteryx
than avian, I think.

A mural covering the back wall shows a meadow
with a rooster and hen, tall as the wall itself,
crafted in the pastels of a fetal dream.
Two sunrise-gold chicks the size of bean-bag chairs
and identical – at least, I figure, until the onset
of poultry puberty – stand near the hen.
A single eggshell cracked in half
lies beside a nest far in the background.
The rooster looks like he wants to flee,
fatherhood a demand he has no talent for.

Our eyes lock, night skies fooling in their pupils.
None of it seems real –
like most of the other things we've seen
since our hands were pulled apart
on the way out of the womb.