by John Grey
I awake to a hoot,
most likely a mourning dove,
but I prefer it be an owl.
With just a name,
my head can make an owl appear.
It’s daylight
which is not owl territory
but, when my imagination
gets involved,
the bird has no say in the matter.
The mourning dove
is as common as sunshine.
But the owl is one of a kind,
the sort of bird I prefer
to have looking in on me.
Besides, it’s my poem,
not reality’s.
Every word
is my say-so.
I make the frame.
I decorate it accordingly.
White feathers, not grey.
A neck that turns.
A face for every direction.
And a beak to die for—
If you’re a mouse, that is.
My wife awakes.
“Those mourning doves
sure are loud,” she whispers.
But she’s eighteen again
and she’s not saying that.
John Grey is an Australian poet and US resident, recently published in New World Writing, New English Review, and Tenth Muse. John’s latest books, Between Two Fires, Covert, and Memory Outside The Head, are available through Amazon. John’s work is upcoming in Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal, Amazing Stories, and River and South.
Little Leaf Literary Journal 