​​
​TWO DEATHS

I
The hurt owl
In the gravel roadway shifts
From one claw to the other.
The iris of one eye splattered
Like ink on yellow
Cellophane. The other
Stares, a perfect target,
Distrustful, woozy.
It has fluffed itself
Big as a tombstone, tufted
Earfeathers, scythe beak clacking,
Its little snake-pale tongue.


II
The colt is still alive
On his feet, plodding, head down
In slow circles, fur matted with sawdust,
Eye, a prayer of flies,
Chainsawing dullness, legs buckle
Him down into a heap,
Swollen belly, head flung
At a distorted angle.
Last night, he thrashed in the stall
While you inoculated sleep.
A grey-white rat slid past
On a beam above your head, ghostlike.
I held the water bucket
To the colt’s lips, you supported
Him as he drank, shallowly,
Then sighed and rested
His head on a flake of straw.
Dawn gripped the edges of the window,
Mourning doves began to call.
The colt’s sides heaved
And heaved and heaved. He went on breathing.


III
It will be another scorcher. Already, heat
Pleats the inner wrists of willow leaves
And in the dips of pasture, mist
Is burning off.
You choke a rat
From the white cat’s jaws.
A gift of sustenance for the owl
Who perches on a fallen branch in shade,
Lifting one tilted hinge
Lopsidedly as if recalling
Long noiseless swoops from barn to barn
When he was still a menacing shadow.
He accepts the rat
With dignity. His intact eye
An awful inquiry
Fixing ours. The third lid shutters, opaque,
Back and forth over the blasted one,
A yellow map of jagged  black islands.
He puffs up big at our approach
But doesn’t flee. He is the predator.


IV
The colt sprawls in the sun
In a dome of flies.
Sudden violent twistings, then
Collapse, His huge dark eye
Moist as a grape, rolls
In terror. His cries
Are silent ones. Just weaned, he’s learned
The hopelessness of bawling.
You give him morphine. He doesn’t
Want to die, this feisty little one,
Staggering to his tiny hoofs to thrust
His muzzle into water, come up dripping,
Not swallowing, his eyes
Terribly hurt, then down, rolling again
Learning how to stop living
In the agony of a twisted gut.


V
The backhoe comes to dig him under.
In the far field, mares in foal
Are grazing, the August sky
Shorn of clouds, bloats bright blue,
Brash
As the barn man with his red muscles
And unblinking pleasant bovine stare.


VI
The owl waits for the long day
To cripple into nightfall.
He won’t make it
Either, eyeshot, equilibrium
Vanquished. He ruffles himself
To the largest version of threat he can
And postures furiously against tomorrow.


First published in the new renaissance