It’s January (again) and I’m dreaming (again) about owls. A grizzly local man 
claiming to be an expert doubts my love for these birds and threatens me 
with his gun. Twenty-three kindergartners go /nnn/ when I hold up 
Nigel Nightowl. They touch thumbs to index fingers to create tiny circles, 
curl the rest of their fingers into feathers, hold these handmade owl eyes 
up to their own. Letter name, I prompt. I would’ve thought O for owl but then
 I didn’t invent Zoophonics, and anyway that would deprive me of forty-six tiny arms 
wiggling Olive Octopus. I run from the rifle-wielding birder, turning at corners, 
trying to lose him. When I stop to catch my breath I look up and see (of course)
an owl, perched on somebody’s porch. No matter that it’s broad daylight. 
The dream doesn’t notice. It’s a beautiful bird, brown and spotted, big as a 
kindergartner, tilting its head toward me. I don’t know how I could ever love it enough 
so I keep running—right into another dream. Or is it the same one? I’m at work now 
and another man is holding a gun 
and I don’t know how he feels about birds. 
I lock the door and cover the window 
and huddle twenty-three kindergartners 
under two tables in the back of the classroom,
reminding them to keep their squirming 
bodies still, their voices level zero. But then a boy, 
whose middle name is Owl, 
pushes another boy, 
whose middle name I don’t recall, 
                                               and he shouts
                                               and the table shakes 
                                               and something goes crack
                                               and something goes hoot, hoot
                                               and something goes beep beep beep 
                                               and I recognize it as my alarm clock.
The dream-children untangle and scatter. Nocturnal birds call it a night. But the men 
and their weapons wake with me (again) and follow me (again) (of course) to work.