by Regina Gort Betances
Screech owl:presided from the grocery store sign where we bought
boxed Pinot Grigio to celebrate our first studio apartment
Barn owl:hunted on our wedding day a shot gun aimed at cranes for eating
minnows from your step dad’s stock pond
Saw-whet owl:pregnant and after we were married for only 3 months, screeched through
the night unsure we could last much longer
Snowy owl:flew on the edge of a blizzard our front door blew open
snuffed out the single candle on our daughter’s birthday cake
Barred owl:a pair nested in our backyard elm tree, three children now
and I was almost certain we were forever
Great grey owl:tattooed on your forearm, eyes open while I slept and thought
we understood love’s miracle of hollow bones. Silent flight.
When the owls disappeared:we buried a child
our first, age 14
buried my father
buried our baby girl, only 7
Great horned owl:above us on an electric wire after the funerals
we wandered lost and flightlesstrying to return
to each other
Regina Gort Betances is a retired chef who prefers thimbleberries to huckleberries. She grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan where fiddleheads, chanterelles and skinny dips were abundant. She now lives in Puerto Rico, the island of her heritage and in the bounty of mango trees and sea turtle snorkeling. Regina's first collaborative poem was published in North Dakota Quarterly. She has been subsequently published in Rova Magazine, Deep Wild Journal, The Journal of Latina Critical Feminism, and The Dewdrop.
Emerge Literary Journal 