The Baker's Daughter

Ophelia: They say the owl was
a baker’s daughter. Lord
we know what we are,
but now what we may be

I was once the baker’s daughter,
burned fingers singed hair, the early rise at dark
hot red bricks yelling for me to leave. Yeast
and its smell making me sick intermixing

with my father’s sweat. How I hated the rows
of kuchen, lines of strudel
displayed on our wooden shelves.

The flour clung to my hair and skirt. I
could never get rid of it. Every day was
the same. Sunday only brought hours

of standing and praying in church.
At night before I fell asleep, I would look
at my Black Forest sky, hear the music of wind

caressing leaves, bathe myself in the silver
white moonlight. I prayed to Athene in her grove
of sacred linden trees. I wished to leave this place,

this town with out the gift of a wedding gown.
And one night last autumn surrounded by
sweet scent of dropped leaves, they rose

up with winds embracing me in a column
of red and yellow. Inside my skin grew taupe
feathers, my eyes began to glow, I became

Athene’s owl. And I fly and swoop at night.
My wings touch tips of trees. I catch rats, voles,
at home in a world of night, dreams, and death.