In my dream we found her,

the larger of that pair
of barn owls we had been
watching, her wings
like a gold and white shawl
folded about her.
I lifted her with great care,
touching beneath the wings
her skin pillowed with down
soft and fine as your hair,
and we buried her.

Now the silence

after the phone rings
    in our room
in this strange new darkness
    of nights
plundered by sorrow.
    The unwitting intruder
tore open
    a dream,
thrashing
    the strange waking
moments when I still
    sense you here.

Wrong number.

You are gone? I’m alone
in our room, with the harshness
of grief, stinging and shrill
as the other owl’s
screeching out there.
He may will himself
to die, as some owls do,
one of these moonless,
starless nights longing
to fly with the one we buried.

Gone with you