Contributor: Perry L. Powell

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That owl resting on the funeral home
surveys the evening like a wanton judge.
I have passed beneath those curled wings before,
and no salvaging thoughts grew from my head.
Nor do they come today as I stroll by.

But when I walked that parking lot that day
all my happiness dead in a wooden box,
wisdom arrived as the ashes of a heart
and time sang like a debased currency.

The all that we didn't want when it arrived,
the little love we might yet have given,
those last rays of sun that broke the trees loose,
the winter nights that stalked us through the streets,
what could they ever say about this or that?


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Perry L. Powell's work has appeared in Leaves of Ink, Cattails, Chrysanthemum, Futures Trading, Miller's Pond, The Wales Haiku Journal, vox poetica, and winamop, among other places.