screech owl: strix

I am an open throat
with the night sliding down
beating at shadows
yowling in red fields,

spinning wave filaments into beats
of self-betrayal, prey (though I
am all engagement, all sensation
and know nothing of this)
in the leaves, blood burst
beneath snow - and here, look,
here a poem was snatched, still glowing

here are whirling feathers
and the signs of struggle
here are footprints
at the perimeter
where something came to look

and here a boy runs down staircases
a dripping thing fresh
in his hands
the cry of a world in his ears

and all of it, all that we look for,
is in this wild-eyed running
and the owl's screech of tears.