e.a. toles

Owl

an owl watches me.

these rooms did not birth
me. yet I was found

and nearly without teeth
at that.
my mother fed me on pellets,

on regurgitated death,
on loved bones ground
useful and nurturing.

she had grand wings, they
smelled of iron, her
breath of vermin.

she told me I would have
a beak one day. my talons

would come in. kind mother
owl, how were you to know

my molars were beneath
my skin? could you not hear

my labored tears?

an owl is watching me.
each story is only a lost
feather, the man standing

grey and cool on the corner
was always silent

yet his eyes are wide
as if he were seeing
a dream walking

before him.
if I could believe,

I swear to you, I would.
how can death still

be so silent and concerned
all these years?

there is an owl,
it watches me out of the corner
of its right eye,

watches as the light glints
through the steel night,

watches as i learn to be still
and listen to the silence
resting on a breeze.