It wasn’t Miro’s colourful coq
Nor Chaucer’s Chanticleer
Nor the one that crowed three times when Peter
Denied Jesus.
It was just a garden variety rooster
That waddled onto the page
When my back was turned
& scrabbled between the lines
Before I sent him on his way
feathers all ruffled
Into a sunset red
as a coxcomb.
John Malone 