At the grill by the pool, he was asked,
“Do roadrunners fly?”

He thought to himself, my, oh, my,
why do they want to know if those birds fly?

But right off the top of his head,
he said he’d give it the old college try.

So he said they run so fast they take off
like a low flying plane but only in spurts so short.

He googled it and he was right. Running at
seventeen mph, they aren’t the flying bird sort.

So he googled about what they eat when they
are running fast and flying low.

He learned they swallow rattlesnakes, scorpions,
tarantulas, mice, rats and other vermin whole.

He wondered if they make pets to take on hikes
in the Phoenix Mountain preserve to protect him,
body and soul.

They would be off leash, against laws of the city,
but having them on a leach would be such a pity.

The bird couldn’t run nor fly distances short,
nor catch the critters of a poisonous sort.

So, he guesses he will have to rely
on his snake trained Chocolate Lab, his gift to ply,

to keep him and his wife in a safe place
while they hike in the mountains at a good pace.

And when they get home and he grills some dinner,
if those folks are there again, he’ll tell them

road runners might fly, but a well-trained
Chocolate Lab in the mountains is the real winner.