Owl Unbound

 

First we found the snake

a ball of coiled skin and muscle

in a pickling jar at the base of the hedge.

 

I followed my father up

the outside stair to the stable loft,

on one side the railway signal

without a track,

on the other a brick wall,

pocked as the moon,

that would crumble

like cheese in the rain

under the thud of my ball

and send it flying sideways

escaping me.

 

The tread creaked as my father entered

and I followed into the dim.

I looked around, but saw

only an empty perching post.

The owl had gone with its master.

 

At my father’s instruction

I held out my hands

as if ready to receive bread and wine,

but into my bowl of fingers

he dropped a pellet,

a galaxy of small bones and feathers

cocooned in fur.

 

That night I woke.

The moon shredded by clouds

hung over the stable roof

and an owl called unbound

from the cypress tree.

 

 

The Lost Daughter

 

The female body is 55% water. The rest is dust.

 

The fullness in the throat will not be cleared.

Deep in the night,

when the farm dogs clamour at the moon,

the throat tightens and contracts.

Under the floorboards

the dark heaves and swells.

This fullness, this emptiness.

You clear your throat,

and still the dark swells.

You have dust in your throat.

Whose dust?

Whose dust rises in moonlight?

Whose dust lies upon lungs,

clogs veins, fills your head with fears?

There are so many images

that in the night sidle between the sheets.

In the day perhaps they can be put aside,

wiped from the window like condensation.

You rise and rinse her out of your throat.

But then the dust gathers again

and the panes mist over.

The drops join and begin to flow.