1753. . . . when the cock was placed at the top of the steeple Zeb Prutt . . . ascended to the summit, sat on the copper bird and imitated the crowing of a rooster.
—Sylvester Judd, History of Hadley, 1863
I can’t stop seeing Zebulon on the steeple, hearing his call singe the sky. I can’t stop knowing my own ancestors enslaved him.
Zeb cock-a-dooing over the churchgoers, bonnets and flattops askew, scuttling out of their fresh-hewn pews, the pine still pungent. Hands shading eyes, Look. It’s Widow Porter’s African man.
I picture him shining like the copper rooster, his sweat-bright skin dark against a white steeple. Do his thighs burn, clinging up there? Does the rooster screech, chafing on its iron rod? I want Zebulon heroic, crowing for freedom.
From bare shoulders, I want him to spring iridescent feathers—green, red, black. I want him to wing out his arms, swoop onto the breast of clouds. Soar beyond the honking vee of geese, down the Great River flashing blue. Fly, fly away Zebulon.
Irony is that he still serves me, shining and crowing in my head. Pries my voice from white pages. Demands I look at every pore and scar of my own skin, what I do to him, what we do to each other.
At my feet, a Rhode Island Red scratches in the dirt with yellow claws. Stirs the soil.