The Once and Future King Of Ohio

Dawn. Two roosters stud the side of the road.One of them is dead. The other stands thereStiff in the car’s sudden breeze, staring outAcross the hilly Ohio highway,Skyward towards that something slight of brightReds and pinks, a pallid rooster-featheredHue, as silent as the rooster standingAnd as distant as the rooster on its side.We drove by, my guide and I, too quicklyTo know if one rooster was waiting forThe other, or which had been waiting—,Or, if they’d planned to cross the road togetherWhen suddenly something went terribly wrongEither at the end of having crossed itOr simply, as happens, during the wait.

The whole Ohio highway seemed to know, though,Like the gate of Heaven you see at death(As a light or a shining shunning darkness)Knows Heaven without actually beingHeaven, being rather just a border,Still part of our plausible worldOf parts, living and dead, male and female,Color and color, belief and belief …There’s really no reason to believe orNot to believe what you see when you see it.But when at speed I saw those two roostersTrying to figure out what’s next for themAs the distances we travelled on the661 swallowed them whole with wheat,I looked from my passenger’s seat intoThe car’s rearview mirror, and saw nothingThat was neither Heaven nor OhioAs the horses stirred, and the steeples slept,And the state flattened out like a mirror.And am I not a mirror for that mirror?