Short Fiction
poetry
1 min
Wild Peacocks on the Loose
Katharyn Howd Machan
Like at Jeanne's.
Like before the hurricane
tore and flooded and buried and stripped.
Like when I visited her one March
and their good strong claws made love's own thunder
on her metal roof as they sought mates.
Like the colors in old fairy tales
princes and princesses wear to impress
each other, themselves, the writers of stories
who ooh over purple and ah over green
that shimmers amethyst emerald light
and watches with myth's deep blue eye
defying hands' transgression. Like
the early world, the one before houses,
before people learned how to cage:
God's brilliant birds who know how to flee
when oceans rise in retribution,
when black winds roar in rage.
Wild Peacocks on the Loose was selected for MSUL’s themed call for work about Water, in coordination with the MSU Broad Art Museum’s fall 2023 exhibition, Flint is Family in Three Acts, featuring the photography of Latoya Ruby Frazier.
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