peacock feathers

Feathers from a peacock, specifically, the tail feathers. On the male peacock, these feathers are large and colorful, while on the female they are smaller, drab and brown. This could be because the burden of seduction falls to the male in the species and not the female. Peacock feathers have many uses, some of which include:

a. fanning the pharoah
b. tickling random people and things
c. teasing cats
d. decoration
e. bludgeoning (but you would need lots of feathers for that which can get expensive, as the feathers range from 50 cents to a dollar a piece)

at kensington market
feathers for sale: dollar-buys-three.
somewhere in this world
there are peacock farms and farmers
and strange to think
the plumes of krishna's bird, the eyes of argus,
are so cheaply bought and sold.
people used to think peacocks could turn
snake venom to sunlight, but now
snakes don't scare anyone.