Consider the Rooster

Who did not ask to join this world any more than I did. 
Who scans for trouble as he pecks the ground. 
Who announces when a hawk lands in the naked maple above. 
Who emits a low trill to warn the flock. 
Who does this on instinct to protect potential offspring. 
Who rarely takes a treat when offered scrap or seed. 
Who instead yips to gather the hens around it. 
Who sometimes does this regarding some shiny piece of trash. 
Whose wattle catches light the way red lipstick does. 
Who slept between breasts as a day-old cockerel. 
Whose first attempt to crow sounded like a flopping sock. 
Who directs with one stiff wing. 
Who we thought would be a hen. 
Who reminds all in earshot that like it or not another day has come and gone. 
Who disturbs the interior idyll of the neighbor writing lectures on environmental philosophy. 
Who keeps the hens alive to lay another day. 
Who would risk his life to protect. 
Who cockfighters gas up on steroids and provoke to battle. 
Who they then point to as an example of how violence is natural among men. 
Whose crow can scare away the devil and rouse the dead back to life. 
Who will provoke a strong response of either humiliation or joy.

God, I won’t be your sacred chicken if it means I have to fight, but I will fight. 
I already scan the perimeter. 
Testosterone, yes, I take it. Which is not the same as fighting.  
The shape you see has nothing to do with me, or the rooster 
Who sleeps in a cardboard box in the garage because the philosopher called the police, 
Then asked for eggs. 
Do you hear that crow that sounds almost like a recording of a crow? 
That’s daybreak. It is regular like daybreak. Or twilight. It rattles a certain  
Window that matches its vibrational frequency. Because the glass, under all that  
Strain of air molecules around it, finally decides to change.