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.

the new renaissance