I was young and leaned

against the gray boards, almost sleeping.

Newly weaned from the drill and splash,

the chamber-pot’s porcelain contingency,

I knew just enough of darkness

and nightsounds, the musky aroma

of the outhouse, to doze there,

my nightdress gathered round me like a flourish.

When the owl lit, I knew it was God.

My first look from the door’s

slim crack was proof: white

and blazing with moonlight, it lifted outward and made

in two great and silent wingflaps

the chicken house, dark and unclucking

across the yard. The black eyes rolled over

the lawn like searchlights.

Again and again it flew across

the still world, silent as a star.

Until once, as it left its perch above me,

it tilted and came instantly down

on my yearling gray cat. Just a flash

of talon, a gnarled leg of amber,

and both were gone, the winging silent as ever

across hayfields, the pulse of wings

a silver trail into trees. I ran inside

and shivered in my bed until daylight. Since

that day, I have wondered

how I came to be there, sleepy

and desperate in the stillness. The cat

likewise, yawning in its moonlight

meander after rodents and moths.

And the bird, the snowy owl,

winging effortless as breath.