by Jen Karetnick
At dusk, the screech owls warn us with a bounce
of song that we’ve come too near the recesses
they’ve accessed, their found nests, in the live oaks.
They target heads—ours, and the dogs we walk.
We wear bright-brimmed hats, neon the leashes
of the animals, brighten cell phone
screens to announce our presence. But such small,
otherworldly suns fool just a few. One
night a fly-by swooping cranes us upward.
We find an owl, melting into her
tiled backsplash of brown, beige, and dun,
guarding a duckling?—yes, a wood duckling,
tiny crest of head beginning to green,
peeking out from behind the bird who warmed
a rogue egg enough to hatch it. He hears
the slide whistle of his mother along
the canal and jumps from the limb to land
unharmed in the swale we have neglected
to trim. Even the dogs pause as he runs
to his kin. Only the owl fills the space.
Feathering her hollow. Settling. Settling.
The winner of the 2018 Split Rock Review Chapbook Competition for The Crossing Over (March 2019), Jen Karetnick is the author of eight other poetry collections, including The Burning Where Breath Used to Be (David Robert Books, 2020) and The Treasures That Prevail (Whitepoint Press, September 2016), finalist for the 2017 Poetry Society of Virginia Book Prize. Her work has appeared widely in publications including Cimarron Review, The Hamilton Stone Review, JAMA, Lunch Ticket, Michigan Quarterly Review, The McNeese Review, The Missouri Review, North American Review, Ovenbird, Prairie Schooner, River Styx, Salamander, Tampa Review, and Verse Daily. She is co-founder/co-editor of the daily online literary journal, SWWIM Every Day. Jen received an MFA in poetry from University of California, Irvine, and an MFA in fiction from University of Miami. She works as the dining critic for MIAMI Magazine and as a freelance lifestyle journalist and a trade book author. Her fourth cookbook is Ice Cube Tray Recipes (Skyhorse Publishing, June 2019). Find her on Twitter @Kavetchnik, Facebook @Kavetchnik and @JenKaretnick, and Instagram @JenKaretnick, or see jkaretnick.com.