Our rooster owned the henhouse we never gave the house I closed the wire gate behind and entered his domain Shiny feathers ruffled cocky head raised tall cocked eye on the intruder pomp of sound and strut I went about the chores of mending fence and post The bird-eye never left me as if sizing up a threat I forgot him for a moment abandoned watchful glance He must have read my gender for my man, he never touched Without a vocal whisper I heard the rush of wings could have passed for angel’s gentle breeze around my ears He flew important mission not mild, but boldly militant as angels sometimes are planted talons in my back to which I swung around and meant to kill with hammer blow but he was gone by then his proud head standing tall Comes a moment in a story poem where news is done and culminates ends subtly, deft, or bluntly and a moral should appear A careful poet uses lighter fingers places ferns beneath coniferous trees understory to some curious acts of a raucous maddening cock applied to other kinds of life as poet changes modes: discovery by Copernicus to Galileo’s sense The mystery and the enterprise for which this rooster lives and why he fought a larger hen or did he want to mate