Crepuscular by John Grey

Brocken Inaglory
[CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]

Such an odd name
for the owls that hunt
the twilight rodents.

Or the woodcock
digging for earthworms.
Or the nighthawk
snaffling insects
on the wing.

Crepe is crisp and thin,
almost invisible,
And muscular
providing the strength, the tenacity,
to kill.

And all in the time
that is not quite anything.

Not bright.
Not dark.

Just a strange word
hungry for meaning.

*****

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Midwest Quarterly, Poetry East and North Dakota Quarterly with work upcoming in South Florida Poetry Journal, Hawaii Review and Roanoke Review.