Artifice

The plastic Great Horned Owl, stuck with glue on the stamped tin, corbelled cornice lip impresses no one — not the starlings that dip and stitch, nor pigeons as they fluff and coo around its feet. And vinyl siding’s too regular — each molded, faux-grained strip identical, but for dents, and that drip of   bird shit from a sill. What if all you might say speaks like crafted, ersatz things: mimicry in a tongue you barely know? Your owl signs death, the cornice stone, the fake clapboard conjures farmhouse. While just below the ledge, a wren’s mindless gestures make an altar of twigs, in veneration of wings.