The Owl Cycle
after Zachary Schomburg
He brought the owls into their marriage. The owls caused crying through the walls
and in the bath tub with the baby. She was four days out of labor when she found
out about the owls. He said the owls had been with him since childhood, sitting on
his shoulder, talons drawing casual blood. When he first met her, he drove to a field
in the rain, held his arm up, screamed at the owls to fly away. On the way home, with
no feathers in his van, he thought he lost them, but they were circling high, attached
to him like kites. Owls in the eaves of the house now, owl droppings all over the rug.
He tried to kill the owls with plastic bags and the river but they clawed their way
out, claimed to love him more, sat on her bed posts while their heads turned and
turned. When she was in the hospital giving birth to their baby, the owls were
swooping over the field, night vision making everything red. She always thought the
cuts on his arm were from working in the garden. How could she have known what
he was feeding at the edge of the trees.
by Karen Finneyfrock
He brought the owls into their marriage. The owls caused crying through the walls
and in the bath tub with the baby. She was four days out of labor when she found
out about the owls. He said the owls had been with him since childhood, sitting on
his shoulder, talons drawing casual blood. When he first met her, he drove to a field
in the rain, held his arm up, screamed at the owls to fly away. On the way home, with
no feathers in his van, he thought he lost them, but they were circling high, attached
to him like kites. Owls in the eaves of the house now, owl droppings all over the rug.
He tried to kill the owls with plastic bags and the river but they clawed their way
out, claimed to love him more, sat on her bed posts while their heads turned and
turned. When she was in the hospital giving birth to their baby, the owls were
swooping over the field, night vision making everything red. She always thought the
cuts on his arm were from working in the garden. How could she have known what
he was feeding at the edge of the trees.
by Karen Finneyfrock
Karen Finneyfrock's debut young adult novel, The Sweet Revenge of Celia Door, was published by Viking Children’s Books in 2013. Her second book of poems, Ceremony for the Choking Ghost, was released on Write Bloody Press in 2010. She is a former Writer-in-Residence at Richard Hugo House in Seattle and teaches for Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers-in-the-Schools program.