"Will this be a poem of well-tended haystacks,
or just one of wires exposed and sparking?"

With that question came no good,
for a cloud budged, and the moon
became a saucer of curdled light.
Cracks appeared in the night's façade.

And now an owl has perched behind me.

There were owls in a dream I once had,
among the fallen, alighting
on the highest calibers,
nesting in dumps of unfired shells.

My owl watches me now,
just as my cat once did,
and, under surveillance,
comes the idea for a woman
on the same field of battle,
dipping into cartridge heaps,
and pouring munitions down
onto the raging lines.

It watches still,
and now I see her pecking
the men clean of rounds
and amassing stockpiles
to rival Russia's?