NIGHT SONG

Last night I heard an owl
In the closed port of a night,
my skin crawling and
on fire,
was its sorrowful song
a few lilting stanzas and it was gone.
And is it a bad omen,
you think?
And what of my enjoying it?
And you,
What's good?  

Aws el Iskandarani of LA once old me
our own legend of La Llorona,
who roams the earth:
a shapeshifter mother
who casts away the crown of motherhood
a murderess
and that in Egypt, the land before time,
motherhood murderess was
an owl and a
warning
to never leave your clothes to dry
in the eyes of the night
for she’d shoot her silver plumes
tiny daggers
a Shirt of Flame to our youth
and take with her our children, confused,
since I’m no
breeder, Billy Jean. 

Our Books say
the owl is a sign
of Lilith
queen of witches
and we have our coffee grinds
and little sachets
our pasts informing
futures
but we won’t suffer what Lilith was,
the first woman
who Refused
Adam and his
sons,
to live.
If the owl shoots me a message
and we are all one mighty nation
under the same night sky,
is it a bad omen and
What's good? 

A man of some cloth
a pretty piece of sainted flesh and
keeper of the keys —
I’ve known his type
and his type has known me —
spoke in a forum where they generate
power and demand detente
that the homosexuals and women
who have aborted —
strange bedfellows,
are foot-soldiers in Lilith’s army
and I wondered bored whether
somewhere inside
he wanted to enlist in people’s liberation
or whether he was, like me,
a conscript who quickly
moved up the ranks?

Last night, I heard an owl
the only cool thing in the suffocating
closed port of a night,
and liked it.
Forgive me,
fathers, but
the wicked child is a conscript when
over the tabouna-torn flesh of the paschal lamb, he asks
What’s good?