The male is quiet, very quiet, a stealth traveler
He meanders with his wife and babies, searching
For food, it must be, since they dig up my lawn
In the dark, roving up and down the hill
Lingering to excavate parts of yards along the way
My Ring doorbell occasionally records their activity
Its sensitivity, merely video evidence mocking me
These birds of prey strike before I wake, and as I say
The rooster is quiet, ninja rooster quiet, unlike
Any rooster this neighborhood has ever hosted
They’ve all been crowers, day and night
Whoever suggested that roosters only crow at dawn
Did not know roosters, and his moronic cliché persists
In any community more attuned to cartoons than real life
I’ve asked them not to do it
Not that they’re around to hear my pleas
I speak into the empty air whenever I walk out my front door
And witness the carnage this gang has wrought
“Please,” I say to no one except me
“I welcome you to frolic in my yard
But please don’t dig it up.”
Lanning Lee 