At night I hear the calling of the Great Horned Owl
woods flight, talon drop to limb, My Gramma Jo
hunched and quilted. Card shark on the weekends
her hose rolled below her knees, set a gruesome
painting of our suffering lord on her trestle table,
I ran outside. Lurid Geographic painted Aztec
no stranger. I feared danger and the dark, horses
teeth and shaming. My parents hooded raptors,
I met nobody's gaze, more mouse than anything
aloft. My husband longs to fly, I shut my eyes.