Morphs of the Eastern Screech Owl
for Jeremy
A bird is hatched a certain morph
and remains that color all its life.
Red morph owls do not survive as often
as the grey. I was reckless enough to assume
that a college student who goes to sleep
in his single bed will rise again to dress
his body and see the day. Spinnaker-
winged, man-faced bird: yesterday,
I saw you startle from an evergreen.
Your eyes were liquid gold. Now, your body
is a brown paper bag, crushed to the curb.
Bits of you lift and blow in circles across
the double yellow line. What a thing to bury
a boy. To stand around his coffin eating
Sanchez hoagies from his best-loved shop.
To look down at dusk and see the shadow
of someone miraculous cross overhead.
—Dara-Lyn Shrager, originally published in the Fall 2019 issue of Crab Creek Review