If they had been Roman, then someone would have

Died every night for months on end as the Boobook

Owl’s chime coursed through the evening like a late

Night telephone call’s bad news. Metronome regular,

The beat of its hoot shelled them relentlessly, enfilading

Their ears from the patch of remnant blue gums across

Waghorn Street. The book book of its mournful cry, as if

It was a trapped sailor in an air pocket of a capsized ship,

Beating a morse code tattoo with a leaden wrench. Inside

Its tree’s iron hull, the school ruler long bird received the

Suburb’s dying souls nightly, like an apprehensive mother

Drawing up her child’s medicine in a feather light syringe.

When he heard it, fear suckled their young son who forbade

The repetition of its summons & shrieked if he heard its call.