Francesco Renzi
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.
"Poem About an Owl" by Deborah Garrison, from The Second Child. © Random House, 2007.
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