This poem was actually inspired by a photograph I saw online. The barn owl’s face was so strange, flat, and mysterious that I felt as if I had come upon an otherworldly creature. I wanted to write about it, so I imagined an encounter in the woods at dusk. I don’t usually write in couplets, but I liked how they looked for this poem. I wanted to capture an imagined moment in time and express a feeling of fascination and bewilderment. 

Kate Deimling is a poet, writer, and French translator. Her poems have appeared in Slant, Notre Dame Review, Tar River Poetry, Naugatuck River Review, The Midwest Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Plainsongs, and other magazines. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and is an associate poetry editor for Bracken. 

Find her online at www.katedeimling.com.