Good Friday at the Chickadee Poultry Farm by Frankie McMillan

Our parents didn’t believe in the Easter bunny. They said it wasn’t the real story. And instead of us kids chowing down on chocolate eggs we were in the chook shed grading the real ones. Picking feathers from the shitty eggs, wiping them clean then placing twelve each into their cardboard cartons. My big brother was allowed to check the incubator and report on any hatchings. When one lone chick appeared that day, we promptly called him Jesus. He stood on his spindly legs drying under the heat lamp until he was all fluffed up. We had high hopes for Jesus. “Save us,” my brother said, flinging open his arms, “from all this.” Jesus staggered around, knocking into the other eggs. He’d come out early, none of the other eggs had even a faint chip on the top. We watched him getting weaker, going around in smaller and smaller circles.

If Jesus had lived he would have got the chop sooner or later. There’s no room for roosters on a poultry farm. But I wish we hadn’t of left him, still alive, down in a rock cleft by the river. I wished we’d never heard of that dumb resurrection story.

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FRANKIE McMILLAN — Frankie is a poet and writer of short fiction. In 2019 her book, The Father of Octopus Wrestling, and other small stories (Canterbury University Press)was shortlisted for the NZSA Heritage Award and listed by Spinoff as one of the ten best fiction books of 2019. Her poetry has been selected for Ōrongohu / Best New Zealand Poems 2012, 2015 and 2022, Landfall, Takahe and in international journals including Cincinnati Review, Shenandoah and Atlanta Review. Her short form collection, Eddie Sparkle’s Bridal Taxi (CUP) was launched October, 2025. 

Art by ALI McLAFFERTY — Ali is an Austin-based artist, writer, and college history professor. Her writing appears or is forthcoming in The Forge, Fractured Lit, Flash Frog, Gone Lawn, The Good Life Review, Flame Tree Press, Mslexia, and elsewhere. Her artwork has been featured in Flash Frog, where she was the Guest Artist for the 2026 Blue Frog contest  artwork, as well as in Centaur and Foofaraw Press. She believes every surface—paper, wood, walls, stone, or skin—is better with a little paint on it.