The moon says it is midnight. It is
Midnight, or half past eleven, or a quarter of two.
The insomniac owl in the old broken oak
Is asking, “Who?”
You know how it is, as the little hours
Bulge towards three,
And you try to remember who borrowed the stepladder,
Who shot Garfield, who wrote “The Sands of Dee.”
The owl glares at the moon. The moon says,
“It was not me, anyhow.” “True, true,”
The owl says, cleaning his bifocals while
Deploring her grammar. “But who?”
I am almost asleep. It is much too late
To offer a suggestion,
But I will sleep on the problem, and in the morning
Tell him the answer, if I think of the question.