Rooster

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                     after Ellen Bryant Voigt

in the Alps of Dorf Tirol   I lived with the squawk

of a rooster crowing beyond sunrise   wobbling   bobbing

his neck in stretched undulations   his vibrant comb rubber-like

waved as he chased things   things that were not his   and

he spent most days chewing the bumpers off cars

nipping and tugging   seduced by rubber   the taste of excess

                                  had claimed him

in the way it claimed me and catapulted

my tattered bags into the mountain’s air    where

fluctuations in pressure turned porch steps into rapid

ascents and hallways into small invisible vacuums   vacuuming out

all the density of parting   and I’m not fond of too much

too fast   the swing set    the subway   carnival rides   anything

that recoils   pulls back   swings heavy with sinkage and swooning

                                  so I’d wander off

while others talked of whatever people talk about it     it sounded

happy and I’d wonder about the wandering and where it’d take me

and why it took me into a renovated barn enamored

with Italian and German farming equipment    I thought

of my parent’s house      the backroom embellished

with my grandfather’s farming tools     butter churns

horse bridles   a weaning mask and no one asks why those things

are suddenly no longer lining the walls and no one asks why

there are pictures of San Francisco     we’ve never been to San Francisco

and no one seems to notice how where we came from so easily slips

away into some new kind of obsession like the obsession that rooster had

with all things that were not his      abandoned wine corks     leaf scramble

the fine   fine taste of rubber