Trees, gun-metal dark,
creak and moan.
Mice scurry through the underbrush.
There’s a hoot owl in their heaven
and it promises to wreak hell.

All is unhinged when the sun goes down.
Long-held opinions dissipate in shadow.
There’s no more bird song.
Air fills with bat squeak instead.
Hunger pushes some creatures into the open.
Predators are unharnessed somewhere above.
They peer down from upper branches
with immaculate eyes.

One step and immediately there is an echo.
A fox hears.
A coyote moves in on every sound.
Everything
that’s not huge and terrifying
is tiny and afraid.

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident, recently published in Stand, Washington Square Review and Sheepshead Review. Latest books, ”Between Two Fires,” “Covert” and “Memory Outside The Head” are available through Amazon. His work is upcoming in the McNeese Review, Santa Fe Literary Review and California Quarterly.