by Amanda McLeod
A Terrifying Line From My Duolingo Spanish Lesson
The owls learned English a long time ago.
We don’t know who taught them, or why, or when.
They say they taught themselves. They say they’ve always known.
They say, What English? They laugh, a private joke.
One or two have spoken to me once or twice.
When I’ve asked the age old question, they’ve murmured, You
watched us for our wisdom. We watched you for your words.
Never anything more or less.
Unsurprisingly, or so it seems to me,
They remain woodwatchers. Night gliders.
They mock Apollo, praise Artemis in the meat that slides past their beaks.
Stay hunters. Stay wild. They wait.
Fox Auslander is a non-binary poet hailing from Philadelphia. Despite everything, they are probably happy. You can find their other work in The Penn Review, Chantarelle’s Notebook, X Marks the Spot: A Non-Binary Anthology, forthcoming in Mineral Literary Magazine, and on Twitter @circumgender.
Amanda McLeod is an Australian author and artist, with a penchant for wild places and quiet. Her work has appeared in many places both in print and online, and she received a 2019 Pushcart Prize nomination from Ellipsis Zine. Her work has been shortlisted in several writing prizes, and won the 2018 Marjorie Graber-McInnis Short Story Award. She is Managing Editor of Animal Heart Press.