The owl is one mask that fits when you sleep. He stoops in the wounded branch of a lightning-split oak, descends, claws open, on mares that gallop in dreams that don’t have borders, the gate meant to hold them open as a scream. Somewhere, in that part of the dream where you can’t follow, an owl tangles in the unshorn mane of a horse running blind toward the smell of water. Dwelling in dreams requires a faith in the unknown that gets harder as we age into bodies marked by their own strikes and wounds. If no bird mistakes you for prey, neither will any land on your back and spread wings as your run toward the deep root of your thirst.
Al Maginnes has published four chapbooks and nine full length collections of poetry, including 2021's The Beasts That Vanish. Recent poems appear in Lake Effect, Xavier Review, American Journal of Poetry and many others. He lives in Raleigh NC.
