Poem About an Owl

I’ve never seen an owl

Not a real one

But often enough at night

Have started up at the wingbeat:

Long, with loaded silence between lengths

Like velvet ripping

The children’s-book eyes

Saucerish and startled with wisdom

Sweeping the forest floor

For a little something, a little something

And I leapt from sleep

If indeed I was sleeping

Belted my robe like a mother of old

And rushed to their beds to see

If it got them, the skidding talon,

Where they were quietly

Breathing in their own

Animal dreams