An Owl

Twice through my bedroom window I’ve seen the horned owl drop from the oaks to panic the rabbit in my neighbor’s backyard. Last night he paced for an hour across the top of the cage, scrutinizing the can of water, the mound of pellets, turning his genius to the riddle of the wire, while under him the rabbit balled like a fat carnation in the wind. Both of the terriers yapped from their porch but the owl never flinched, pacing, clawing the wire, spreading wings like a gray cape, leaping, straining to lift the whole cage, and the cage rocking on its stilts, settling, and rocking again, until he settled with it, paused, and returned to a thought. And the rabbit, ignorant of mercy, curled on itself in that white drift of feathers? Wait, three years and I haven’t escaped the child I saw at Northside the night my daughter was born, a little brown sack of twigs curled under glass, eyes bulging, trembling in the monitors, and the nurses rolling the newborns out to nurse, and the shadows sweeping the nursery.