Peacock Display
He approaches her, trailing his whole fortune,
Perfectly cocksure, and suddenly spreads
The huge fan of his tail for her amazement.
Each turquoise and purple, black-horned, walleyed quill
Comes quivering forward, an amphitheatric shell
For his most fortunate audience: her alone.
He plumes himself. He shakes his brassily gold
Wings and rump in a dance, lifting his claws
Stiff-legged under the great bulge of his breast.
And she strolls calmly away, pecking and pausing,
Not watching him, astonished to discover
All these seeds spread just for her in the dirt.
Reprinted from "Best of Prairie Schooner: Fiction and Poetry," University of Nebraska Press, 2001, by permission of the author, whose most recent book is Good Morning and Good Night, University of Illinois Press, 2005. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
Also at Virtual Grub Street by/about Ted Kooser:
- The Ted Kooser Page: Links to online Interviews, Recordings, Poetry, Prose, Reviews, Photos and more;
- American Gothic (a review of Delights and Shadows by Ted Kooser. Copper Canyon Press, 2004);
- Ted Kooser and the American Life in Poetry column;
- American Life in Poetry #1: David Allan Evans;
- American Life in Poetry #2: Jonathan Greene;
- American Life in Poetry #3: Marnie Walsh;
- American Life in Poetry #4: Ruth Stone;
- American Life in Poetry #5: David Baker;
- American Life in Poetry #6: Barton Sutter;
- American Life in Poetry #7: Leonard Nathan;
- American Life in Poetry #8: Karma Larsen;
- American Life in Poetry #9: James Doyle;
- American Life in Poetry #10: Marge Piercy;
- American Life in Poetry #12: Andrei Guruianu;
- American Life in Poetry #13: Kevin Griffith;
- American Life in Poetry #14: Georgiana Cohen;
- American Life in Poetry #15: Janet McCann;
- American Life in Poetry #16: Lisel Mueller;
- American Life in Poetry #17: Wendell Berry;
- American Life in Poetry #18: Dan Gerber;
- American Life in Poetry #19: Shirley Buettner;
- American Life in Poetry #20: Jane Hirshfield;
- American Life in Poetry #21: Karin Gottshall;
- American Life in Poetry #22: Jean L. Connor;
- American Life in Poetry #23: E. G. Burrows;
- American Life in Poetry #24: Martin Walls;
- American Life in Poetry #25: Rodney Torreson;
- American Life in Poetry #26: Claudia Emerson;
- American Life in Poetry #27: Angela Shaw.
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