Wild Peacocks
Eight-thousand miles can take
a toll, even on an iPhone,
and so your voice echoes, fades
in and out as you tell me about
the wild peacocks, their call,
their strutty selves walking
the grounds where you
are staying.
Our son guides you
each day through this maze
of newness. You, who clung
to home as if it were your lifeboat,
now wander on evening walks
with him in the dust and heat
of southern India, washing
your clothes in a bucket
and scooping your food
with your hand.
I wonder at
the sound of it, whether I
could navigate such a distance,
could listen to the peacock’s call.
Mary Sexson is the author of the newly released Her Addiction An Empty Place at the Table (Finishing Line Press). Her other books include the award-winning 103 in the Light, Selected Poems 1996-2000 (Restoration Press), and Company of Women, New and Selected Poems (Chatter House Press). She co-authored the upcoming book, Marriage Maps and Driven Destinies, to be published by Chatter House Press in the Fall of 2023. Sexson’s poetry has appeared in many publications. Her work is part of the Inverse Poetry Archives for Hoosier Poets. One of her poems is in the Polaris Trilogy, heading for the moon in 2024. Find her at masexson.wordpress.com, and at Poetry Sisters on FaceBook
Image via: Horydczak, Theodor, Approximately, photographer. Birds. Peacock head looking to right. ca. 1920-ca. 1950. Photograph. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/2019681463/>.