The rooster has a little color.

I have less color than the rooster.

How dizzying, to be so pale

& so spun about by “not tonight’s”

that you crow in the dark

to justify your early rising. I am

mostly the music of understanding.

That is what my skin sings when I

allow it the audience of the field

& when my calves strain without

jumping, I know there will be no crop

where I have left the seed to hide.