Jonathan Ottke

Response

The Warm Nights

alteration

Sun sets, the sexed flowers open.
Far off, teenagers screech
the songs of dead moths.
The warm nights have altered them.
They are hysterical with their sense
of freedom in the dark,
piercing it with their sharp voices.

equation

Somehow in the night
the owl got confused with the
half-filled glass.
In my mind, the hoots were an echo
of what was missing.
You continued to sleep
while a spiky dog barked
to silence the owl.

question at dusk

This is your heart.
This is a young deer I have befriended
who comes in the dusk to eat roses.
Do they see colour, I wonder?
Or is it the scent of something tender?

—Barbara Black

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