Poetry: Search and Rescue

My mother brings home an
owl with a broken wing and winces
when she wraps it in warm towels,

like a part of her is broken too--
maybe there is. I make the bed
like you will sleep there: no sheet.

It takes three days for your
lingering scent to stop lingering or
for my nose to adjust--

either way, it's gone.
The owl dies over night and
my mother begins planning the funeral.

Two birds build a nest on our porch.
I say ours but it was never ours,
now was it?

A ferry sinks on the evening news.
the water is warm and thick,
like breast milk,

so they decide to swim.
I remember the skin behind your ears
and loving you,

violently. I want your blood on my hands.
Dirt in carpet, shovel in sink,
and the owl is still wrapped,

swaddled, on the kitchen counter with
the cat pawing the back door and
mother in the yard,

whispering our father in heaven hallowed be your name.
I make up my mind to
swim to you but by the time I

make it to the Atlantic,
the notes in my pocket are too wet to read.
I forget if they were

love letters to begin with. So I swim home.
Dear mother, did the deer join the prayers
at the owl's funeral?

An obvious ending:
The men and women on the ferry later say
the search was better than the rescue.

The less obvious:
The owl unburied himself
and flew away.


Stephanie Willis