Roadrunner in Repose

Then later a roadrunner huddled on top of a rock, not quite perched but resting, waiting. In the huddle, its neck had been recalled into its body which left, as I viewed it from the front, the plump, round body of a bird that in such a pose looked more like a grouse or a large dove, its long and energetic legs also somehow stored away. My presence, though, shook the roadrunner from its nap, its neck uncoiling as if a latch had been sprung. The bird hopped off the rock, long shafts of spry legs now beneath it, the lengthy pert tail cocked at an upward angle, ready to rudder the roadrunner asail on the sandy ramp of the desert floor.