Evacuate

The smoke detector is blinking at me
its tiny red eye.
Yesterday it said “evacuate! Evacuate!
There is smoke in the living room!”
Such a Chicken Little.
I wonder if Chicken Little male or female?
Hard to tell with a chicken: both sexes cluck the same.
It’s a buck-buck here and
a buck-buck there:
Evacuate! Evacuate! The sky is falling!
But where to, Little?
Tell us that, won’t you?

Wayne F. Burke's poetry has been widely published online and in print (including in Dissident Voice). He is the author of eight published full-length poetry collections -- most recently Black Summer, 2021, Spartan Press. He lives in Vermont (USA). Read other articles by Wayne F..