I am reminded of 1950’s American cars by the mating display of male turkeys, a part of our landscape this month. Photographs tend to make the toms look noble, the symbol of our national holiday. A static visualization, photography can’t capture the movement, the silliness of their display. The red wattles and inflated chests, the quivering feathers, like the fans of flamenco dancers, the puffed blobs over the legs. Turning in a tight circle with a mincing step, the male turkeys resemble the cars of the ’50’s, turning on a circular dais at a Detroit car show.

The male moves slowly toward the hens in his rafter or group. He turns his attentions to one. The disinterested hen moves away, continuing her pecking at the ground, eyes down. The tom turns to another hen, and another, all with the same result, all with no hard feelings. Mincing and quivering, his large tail feathers erect in a half circle, he is Louis XIV, except when a strong wind blows his feathers about. The tom in display is not aggressive, not that I’ve seen. He seems amazingly unsuccessful, but considering the number of wild turkeys in our area, he must succeed.

With failure comes deflation. The hens move off and he follows. His lust abates, the mincing and turning stop. First the tail feathers collapse into what looks like the back of a frock coat. All of the puffed and inflated bits collapse. The bright fuchsia, red and blue of the wattles pale. He puts his head down and pecks, walking like a turkey again—he processes. His thought, “I might a well eat something,” is communicated through the air.

Naturally, I feel sorry for him, silly as he is, hard as he tries. I see something of the tom in myself as a writer trying to publish. There I am, all gussied up, on a revolving dais for the rafters of agents and editors to inspect. I’ve made my feathers as attractive as possible, in the novel’s synopsis, the cover letter, the biography, the query letter, the novel’s first chapter, the first three chapters, the first fifty pages, the entire manuscript—whatever the hen’s desire. Packaged and emailed, or printed and mailed, at expense, it wings its way into a void. Unlike the displaying tom, I don’t get my answer for months. Like the tom, I rarely receive an actual response. More often than not the rafter simply walks away, eyes down, pecking at the earth. Deflated for a time, I recover. No hard feelings.