Cock-a-doodle-doo
Cock-a-doodle-doo
Cock-a-doodle-doo
It’s easy to want to kill the neighbor’s rooster
Who crows at the first fleck of light, tilting his red-combed head
Back in delight and letting out his piercing caw, not once but
Over and over and over again
Until morning flowers and darkness becomes a forgotten thing.
It is easy cocooned in my shroud of infinite night, shades drawn,
The room a catacomb of grey, to formulate murderous schemes
I’ll shut you up, I think, my blade gleaming and sharpened against the
jagged edges of imagination.
I’ll slice your throat until vermilion blood – the color of your magnificent comb –
flows as freely as your raucous caws, I think,
rolling over into a dainty clutch of golden light
How did you get in? I wonder as it tickles my cheek good morning
Good morning, the rooster echoes.
Who keeps a rooster in the middle of town, this is no farm,
I grumble, admittedly defiant
The rooster croons greetings to the day with unrepentant glee
Cock-a-doodle-doo
Cock-a-doodle-doo
Cock-a-doodle-doo
it hollers, who knows what today might bring
Such promise –
Nobody likes a Pollyanna, I wanna shout,
envisioning lopping off his head before lifting
my own to the encroaching yellow light.
My cocoon successfully breached, I rise
Cock-a-doodle doo
Cock-a-doodle-doo
Cock-a-doodle-doo
Good Morning goes his refrain
And, as I wrestle out of bed, my feet
smacking a speckle of sun on the wooden floor, suddenly,
His Majesty, the Red-Combed Maestro ceases
his sublime song.