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The feathers lift —
like the sudden coming on
of sprinklered water
over imperial lawns.
Breeze-shaken and trembling —
you imagine the break
into a drift of wish-flowers.
Now the fan streaming with dance —
(imagine the face of an
angel
streaming with light
in an annunciation).
It's the lovely silver rippling
at a saint's fingertips
in a Kirlian
photograph.
Seeing
is like entering a Chinese shop
full of paper lanterns —
voices whispering
in room after room like hands
caressing ceremonial silk —
until you come out
to a farmyard screeching of hens.
The peacock is just another sad rag-picker
about a cage, alone
in the knowledge of its palatial etiquette.
It goes about the pen-muck
with the geese,
the yokels of turkeys
slubbering at scraps, hen-poor.
Its chicken-wire existence
against which the tail, at times,
flounces itself
like a Marie Antoinette
or glows like
Saint Theresa among the stricken.