print previewback BRENDAN GALVIN
Mascots
Late, when the clock’s numbers
are a red blur, the screech owl
woke me with its baleful
rapid wailing, the bluest,
blackest side of any music
I’ve heard. I lay there wishing
again for some charm I knew
so I could roll out of bed
and flip one shoe heel up,
or turn my pants pockets
inside out as if to show that owl
there was nothing of mine
it needed, and send it off
through the dark. Even thinking of it
as a shaggy college mascot
with size-twelve feet, the kind
they sell in bookstores with
the school’s logo on its chest
and eyes like gold saucers
in its cat face is no help when
it wants me to be its mascot,
wants me to sit on the darkest
shelf in its hollow tree somewhere. 
Duets
Mascots