An Owl

Twice through my bedroom window

I’ve seen the horned owl drop from the oaks to panic

the rabbit in my neighbor’s backyard.

Last night he paced for an hour across the top

of the cage, scrutinizing

the can of water, the mound of pellets,

turning his genius to the riddle

of the wire, while under him

the rabbit balled like a fat carnation in the wind.

Both of the terriers yapped from their porch

but the owl never flinched, pacing,

clawing the wire, spreading wings like a gray cape,

leaping, straining to lift the whole cage,

and the cage rocking

on its stilts, settling, and rocking again,

until he settled with it, paused,

and returned to a thought.

And the rabbit, ignorant of mercy,

curled on itself in that white drift

of feathers?

Wait, three years and I haven’t escaped the child

I saw at Northside the night

my daughter was born,

a little brown sack of twigs

curled under glass, eyes bulging,

trembling in the monitors,

and the nurses

rolling the newborns out to nurse,

and the shadows sweeping the nursery.

Source: Vagrant Grace: Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 1999)