Town Owl

On eves of cold, when slow coal fires,rooted in basements, burn and branch,brushing with smoke the city air;

When quartered moons pale in the sky,and neons glow along the darklike deadly nightshade on a briar;

Above the muffled traffic thenI hear the owl, and at his noteI shudder in my private chair.

For like an auger he has cometo roost among our crumbling walls,his blooded talons sheathed in fur.

Some secret lure of time it seemshas called him from his country wastesto hunt a newer wasteland here.

And where the candlabra swungbright with the dancers’ thousand eyes,now his black, hooded pupils stare,

And where the silk-shoed lovers ranwith dust of diamonds in their hair,he opens now his silent wing,

And, like a stroke of doom, drops down,and swoops across the empty hall,and plucks a quick mouse off the stair…