Sweetwater, Oklahoma
The peacocks carried rainbows on their tails,
dulled by a blanket of red Oklahoma dust
I chased them down to a dry creek bed, and back
finding shade in a barn stuffed full of tractors
From nests above the machinery,
the birds called out for help facetiously
Uncle Earl’s large black turkey would warble and hiss
drive me off from my shelter, away from the peacocks
Mom chatting to her cousins on a hot porch,
she didn’t hear my stories or look at my collected feathers
The cousins would go in, the day becoming too hot,
into a house filled with children playing video games
I’d run past, through the kids and the cousins
to the roof porch perch to watch the fancy birds
They would notice my absence and strut, heads bobbing
from the shelter, calling out for me in the July sun
Written 25 August 1998 in Claremore, Oklahoma.
Brian Fuchs, “Sweetwater, Oklahoma” from Okie Dokie (Scissortail Press, 2019)