Roosters and Train Whistles
James Cervantes
Somehow, they've always been there
in the dark when I wake up
anywhere, despite absence of track,
though most naturally in the island city
in Iowa's ocean of farmland; Flagstaff,
where tracks parallel the main drag
and thin air dampens flutter and cluck;
in childhood, where they were like right
and left hands clapping me awake,
uncle's chickens and the Southern Pacific
crowing together; Brattleboro,
where roosters woke as the whistle neared
and I knew I'd make the station on time.
And now, two blocks from the Hudson River,
the hoot of a freight cuts like a French horn
through traffic's tremolo and a rooster
struts from the dark into its missing voice.
