American life in poetry

Here David Wagoner, a distinguished Seattle poet, vividly describes a peacock courtship. Though it’s a poem about birds, haven’t you seen the males of other species – including ours – look every bit as puffed up, and observed the females’ hilarious indifference?

Peacock Display

He approaches her, trailing his whole fortune,

Perfectly cocksure, and suddenly spreads

The huge fan of his tail for her amazement.

Each turquoise and purple, black-horned, walleyed quill

Comes quivering forward, an amphitheatric shell

For his most fortunate audience: her alone.

He plumes himself. He shakes his brassily gold

Wings and rump in a dance, lifting his claws

Stiff-legged under the great bulge of his breast.

And she strolls calmly away, pecking and pausing,

Not watching him, astonished to discover

All these seeds spread just for her in the dirt.