A Box of Owls

Eric Brown

An enchantress comes in a dream
and slides me a box of owls.
I open the lid and they rise,
not in flight, but in a slow unravelling,
like smoke wanting to remember the fire.

They are not what I expected.
Not birds, not quite.
Their eyes are too many, too round,
moonlit stones in an eldritch glade,
and their wings are made of paper,
scrolls of prayers in serenade.

The room howls softly,
a sound without teeth,
wind bending around the edges of things.
And you are sitting there,
in that pose where you look so vacant,
like a song I’ve forgotten,
the melody shaped by your hands.

One owl lands on your shoulder.
Its awful, lovely voice spills into your ear,
and you nod, as if you understand.

I want to ask what it told you,
but the owls are already returning to the box,
folding themselves in origami dusk.

The lid clicks shut.
Nothing happened here.
But when I close my eyes
I can still hear the flutter of paper
and the hush of waking.

---

Eric Brown
Eric Brown is Executive Director of the Maine Irish Heritage Center. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in the 2025 Rhysling Anthology, Scientific American, Enchanted Living, Rust & Moth, Gargoyle, The Galway Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Carmina Magazine, Sublunary Review, The Frogmore Papers (shortlisted for the 2023 Frogmore Poetry Prize), and elsewhere.