Sherry Chandler

Hoot owls talk,
breath puffed into a bottle.

That makes it February,
maybe,
mating season.
The bottle is long-necked, brown,
its music muted.
Each wheezy note
assaults the nose
with the smell of stale beer.
So much for hope.

Call it passion muffled
after somebody else's party,
its feathers
stuffed into a pillow
that cannot block
the whispers of scuttling
night creatures.

This first day when light outlasts the dark
we dine on kale that stood the winter freeze.
Although the ground is mud and trees are stark,

this mustard feasts, first, our eyes—early leaves
crinkling purple-edged in the weak sun —
and then our tongues. We are shameless thieves,

cutpurses of growth barely begun,
such is our need, our greed for succulence.
The winter has been gray and long.

On Kroger's shelves, well-traveled stacks of greens
rival cardboard, only the stuff in cans
is worse, bordering on obscene.

I wash these tiny leaves my palm can span
while olive oil heats in the frying pan.