Sustenance

The warmth of my home
extends outside the window panes
to the barred owl resting
on the pear tree. She has no need
of it; football-sized, her tawny feathers
shield her from this bitter wind,
two feet of hardened snow cover,
sustain her. Hungry, she waits
for a feckless mouse. Butchering
her own meat, swallowing it whole,
she has no need of stores or deliveries.
She may be readying for the long
hunkering down on her own nest.
Undeterred by the radio blaring
through the glass, she swoops
to the metal cross of the clothesline,
alights, her talons sharp and hidden,
the way frostbite creeps up on you.
She peers at me through the glass,
as I peer at her, then resume my typing.
We enter the dusk together,
separated by three wingspans.