Peacock

While you were listening to the whale,
and while you were teaching
    the chimpanzee to speak,
and training the parrot to ape you,
and running the horse in a circle,
    and the rat in a maze,
we cried out, all on our own:
                  peacocks! peacocks! peacocks!
Inside each of us was a person, shrieking.
Inside each of us was the beauty
    we unfolded in feathers.

Fanned out, the peacock has eyes that do not see.
It tiptoes inside a shimmer. In an iridescence.
Regal dragons who scream,
    they also squeak and bray.
Their terrible beauty gives them away.
Listen how they muster loudly.
They blare like taxis.
They attack like trombones.
They squawk. They screech. They strut.
They are land lovers but can fly.
They have a sound for whatever they feel.

While you were banding the egrets,
and while you were tracking the shark out to sea,

and training the dolphin to kiss you,
and queuing the lions to act,
    and the seals to juggle,
we cried out, all on our own:
                  peacocks! peacocks! peacocks!
Inside each of us was a person, shrieking.
Inside each of us was the beauty
    we unfolded in feathers.

Do you like the queenly apparitions that we are?
Do you like the kingly apparitions that we are?
Do we not make your world more beautiful?
And does our beauty not terrify you?
We have more than one effect on you.
    We have two.

And while you were listening to the whale,
and while you were teaching
    the chimpanzee to speak,
and training the parrot to ape you,
and running the horse in a circle,
    and the rat in a maze,
we cried out, all on our own:
                  peacocks! peacocks! peacocks!
Inside each of us was a person, shrieking.
Inside each of us was the beauty
    we unfolded in feathers.