Two cock pheasants

two cock pheasants, in display, are fighting
in identical colours, red, green and chestnut

they duck, weave and bob their heads, beak to beak,
either side of a mirror, tails trailed flat like peacocks'

and suddenly flutter and pirouette up
in the air, with a flurry of spurs, like fighting-cocks,

never touching or disarraying a feather:
they might be about to tread each other

and in bird-flight, as in bird-courtship, attention soon wanders:
they look off for a common enemy, or indifferent hen perhaps,

pause, and return with obligatory, each time
lessening verve to their mutual bobbing

then stop, face out and in unison step
off side by side, unblooded brothers

© Alec Rapkin