ROOSTER

Joshua Kulseth

My mother has commissioned me to murder
the rooster she’s pinned between two pitchfork prongs:
the tufted madman’s yawp against disaster
fills the farm. She can’t kill it—

she grew it up for weeks against winter
in a living room bin with others—she knows it,
poor thing, like pubescent me crying out,
mad and raving, jumping

from the car, running away, stretching my wings,
as likely to know what thrilled, what moved and drove me,
as the needful beast she’s just unstuck—he beaks freedom at her,
bolting chase after chicks and ruffling

into whatever urge possesses his feathered breast.
Poor thing: all pomp and bother, proudest cock in the yard.

Joshua Kulseth earned his B.A. in English from Clemson University, his M.F.A. in poetry from Hunter College, and his Ph.D. in poetry from Texas Tech University. His poems have appeared and are forthcoming in *Tar River Poetry,* *The Emerson Review, The Potomac Review, The Windhover, The South Carolina Review *and others. His full-length poetry manuscript, *Leaving Troy,* was shortlisted for the Cider Press Review Publication Competition,
and is currently under contract with Finishing Line Press. He is an Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Art: Fractured Mill by Leslie Brown who grew up in Detroit and now lives in a Washington DC suburb. She has a MFA in Creative Writing from American University. Her visual arts publications. include: Phoebe Literary Journal, Beyond Words, Scapegoat Review, Quibble Lit, and Burningword literary journal, NBR: World Tour, Consequence Magazine, and ZO. Using iPhone photographs and collected images, she explores abstract and non-abstract elements of color, design and form.