Chicken

going out back
in the supermarket where I work
I pass the glass display case
containing dead things, cooked

where once were feathers now are skin
given more space
than when they were alive
if you look up and behind
you can see their fellows
rotating, starting pale as plucked
ending crisply brown, uniform
they are in ranks, hormone pumped
plump chests the crest of a wave
and the scent drifts over
makes me sick, angry
when we're all meant to feel hungry
but I chicken out of doing or saying anything
not wanting to stand out from the herd
be fired?

yet I was given this choice
because humans can tell right from wrong
not just weak from strong
so does it not make me less than chicken
to see injustice and do nothing
but abstain?