名人诗歌|A Change of Heart

A Change of Heart

R. T. Smith

Sunday night a widow in Winslow, Arkansas

came home to find an owl's fully^{1 detailed}

profile printed on her patio^{2 door as clear}

as a photographic plate, and it startled her ||

wings spanned wide and outsized eyes,

the feathers almost impossibly articulate.

The silhouette^{3（轮廓，剪影）, she said, was akin4 to a ghost,}

though she was a disbeliever, and there

in the flickery（闪烁的） kitchen florescence, she fell.

Living solitary^{5, she lay there for a while,}

dreaming the many trials of her earlier life,

including previous encounters with the floor.

Owls^{6, especially horned ones, as the ears}

identified hers, may wear a protective powder

on their feathers, and since their wondrous

eyes can't see glass, they'll do this on occasion,

crash haphazard^{7, as if blind, and leave}

an image so precise you expect it to scream.

It's best to string some beads^{8 or shells across}

a wide window, but seldom are the birds

badly damaged. Even if stunned^{9, casualties}

are rare. The woman, however, bruised^{10 her}

hip and was laid up a spell, at first bewildered,

then coming to terms with the flight

of a predator^{11 most likely out hunting until}

that spectral^{12 threshold rushed up and struck}

him down. The victim, Elise Pell, presently

recovering at her sister's condo, says she's

reading about all manner of creatures who fill

the air above us, ravenous^{13 and stealthy,}

rumored messengers of death. She declares

such visitations can hardly be pure chance.

In fact, this incident has made her a believer,

as the face in the glass was ominously^{14 familiar,}

though absent from our realm some seven years,

a husband with goggle^{15（瞪眼的） eyes and a quick fist.}

An animal, she says, is always just a beast,

but a human man can be a monster.