The Owl to an Orestes

We do murder to get our feet aground

in an ecstatic eagle stoop, crazed

from the unreality of wings. He did not

cry out; weary, went willing to the sacrifice.

See: here his own hand still on the knife.

At best, we understand only the dead or the still unborn:

that ancient Olympian frieze recalling Lepithae;

the seventh star hidden behind the Pleides.

Apollo’s is a distant gaze,

a distant hymn.

Rise then, wash your hands,

and fletch the great god’s bow with a new feather

from my shining wings.