Lesson

The gray and white cat
stills and tightens

at the edge of
the weed-and-Easter lily patch,

tail-tip twitching serious,
and blurs into chase

when the
cottontail bursts

out to kick through
the weed-and-raspberry patch.

The rabbit scuds
deftly under the board fence.

Wham, the cat doesn’t fit,
recoils and

shakes the blow from his head.

James Owens‘s most recent collection of poems is Mortalia (FutureCycle Press, 2015). His poems, stories, and translations appear widely in literary journals, including publications in The Fourth River, Kestrel, Adirondack Review, Tule Review, Poetry Ireland Review, and Southword. He earned an MFA at the University of Alabama and lives in Indiana and northern Ontario.