The Furious Spinner

Food and Sex on the Grounds
Surrounding Maryhill Museum

High above the Columbia River
this oasis of peacock habitat
has been carved green from
the surrounding yellow desert.

We eat our lunch at one of
the picnic tables in the shadow
of planted orange trees and before
long those necks come thrusting

toward us, bending like snakes
tipped with beak tongues, the
flock of them: peahens and
peacocks tamed by easy food.

We break off chunks of sandwiches,
toss bits of bread and lettuce
to them, some fruit, a few chips.
We are doing our part to subvert

natural selection and are amused,
for a short time, by their frenzy
of fighting over a crumb or two.
One of the peacocks stands away

from the unruly banquet. He fans
his iridescent feathers in an arc
of dazzling color and struts his
trembling desire, ignoring other

hungers, wanting to catch a hen’s
unseeing gaze, while she, intent on
a bouncing apple core, benefits by
his thinning of the day’s food chain.

—Mario Milosevic

This poem originally appeared in Animal Life.



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All photographs and written material copyright © 2003-2008 by Kim Antieau unless otherwise indicated. May not be used without permission.