barn owl

barn owl, Tyto alba

the window glass

a quarry unforeseen

the backward fall

to stony ground

silence until found

the snapped neck

throbs like a pulse

between bones

cactus flower

first a fuzzy knob 

swelled from the side of a spiked column

slightly larger week by week

'til suddenly a vertical sprout

& one morning — this

The Middle

I have been in the middle

for a very long time —

the middle

of writing,

of life,

of being a wife, mother,

grandmother, sister, aunt, cousin, niece,

though my niece-ness soon

enough will come to an end —

Mary in her upper nineties.

I’m in the middle of

cooking chicken ratatouille,

weeding the yard after being away for nearly two weeks,

reading a book by Lyn Hejinian.

It’s not the middle of the year or the month.

Soon it will be noon.

On the first of the month Mike usually cuts my hair.

In the middle of next month

we will have lived in Argentina for a year & a quarter.

During that middle we’ve traveled to Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, & Dominica.

The timer going off means the chicken is half cooked.

Middle as everything

since babe in arms,

since tonsillectomy,

until kindergarten,

until graduation of high school.

Alternately, as mother

after the birth of my first child,

my second, the surprise of pure love,

as surprise when I fell for Mike,

for such a long time now

another middle.

Is the entire length of Zeno’s paradox.

Is softer than I'd like.