Owl House

by ROBERT EUGENE RUBINO

From airless attic’s claustrophobic clutter
— everything from scrapbooks in scrapheaps
to unhelpful self-help guides & sauce-stained cookbooks
from used toys used or merely toyed with lifetimes ago
to passé political posters (Run Jesse Run!)
from camping gear with torn tents
from within which smuggled ex-lovers snuggled
high in the Sierra or below
sea level in springtime bloom of Death Valley —
a fragile fearless wise & weary woman tumbles into air autumnal
to craft to labor with handsome hands strong & skilled
creased with dusty history & grimy geography
a neat clean simple wholesome home
for the winged predator rarely heard & never seen
& mount it high
high on her haunted hill.

Since retiring from daily journalism in 2013, Robert Eugene Rubino has published prose and poetry in various literary journals, including The Esthetic Apostle, High Shelf Press and Hippocampus, and his poetry will be featured in the anthology series, Poetic Bond IX, in the fall. He is old enough to have seen Willie Mays at the Polo Grounds and smart enough to solve the New York Times crossword puzzle on Mondays (other days not so much).