Barred Owls

The hooting begins about ten thirty,
our backyard bachelor chanting the standard
“who cooks for me, who cooks for me” then
ascending into a waterfall of “who ha has”
that sound like nothing so much as a
chimpanzee angered by Jim on Wild
Kingdom. A second bird flies in on
inaudible wings, and suddenly
voices braid — tight as half-inch nylon
rope, and it’s clear why so many cultures
deem these alien fricative desires as
harbingers of doom — snake eyes falling
on some winter solstice night.

But my first thought is “the old boy
finally got lucky.”

Gary D. Grossman
MacQueen’s Quinterly #20, 2023