* * *
Owl Swoops
________after Jack Collom
Owl swoops to rooftop of Chrysler Dodge!
jeeps stand sentinel in post midnight plains,
Suburban, Colorado. The night flier
Turns her head and slows time,
Begging your pause
And quiet. Now, almost imagine
Her brown ringed face opening up to face yours,
Light from the car sales spot beaming up,
And a wordless query
Before winging off
As inky as before she alighted.
Now the cars sit together and alone,
Unmoved and unmoving,
In the lifeless Colorado quiet,
Waiting for eyes to find them at day.
* * *
Robert Eric Shoemaker is a poet and interdisciplinary artist. Eric holds an MFA in Creative Writing & Poetics from Naropa University and is a Comparative Humanities PhD student at the University of Louisville. His work has been seen with Signs and Society, Asymptote, Jacket2, Entropy, Gender Forum, Exchanges, Columbia Journal, Bombay Gin, and others. Eric has released two books, We Knew No Mortality (2018) and 30 Days Dry (2015) with one on the way, Ca’ Venezia. Follow Eric’s work at reshoemaker.com.
featured photo by Eric Shoemaker and Olivia Welsh
