The Owl in the Treetops

His shorts like a dress. His skin like a boot. Always stepping. Stepping into or out of it.

Numbers in her throat. Adding and subtracting truths.

Choking on her long division.

Friends. Always friends. Friends without faces.

There was summer in every stroke. Hot and gradual. As it sweated out the last of her strength.

And numbers. Always numbers in her every swallow. A decimal away from whole.

The pleats in his knees. The soles of his skin. Covering her face in footprints.


The owl in the treetops can only ask. Shrouded in shadows and foliage. Bellowing its haunting question as she put the numbers to bed.

It only asks at night. But she imagines it in the daytime. And resumes her counting again.

Who?

Choke down the fractions and let it be dark again.

Incomplete suits me just fine.

It will always ask.

That's because it doesn't know what I always have.