Jane Yeh                                                        

The Only Confirmed Cast Member Is Ook the Owl, Who Has Been Tapped To Play the Snowy White Owl Who Delivers Mail for Harry

                                                                           — article on preproduction for the first Harry Potter film, New York Post, August 2000

Claw up.  Claw down.  Cut.
My fine eyes.  My fine eyes are—  Cut.

I was fluffed and plucked, like a beauty-pageant winner,
Between takes.  Like a news presenter.
Could I be a news presenter?

Rider:  5 rashers bacon.  8-oz. tin mixed nuts.
2 lbs. rabbit fillets.  Assorted drupes.

Between takes, I did leg-lifts in my trailer.

If asked what is your most treasured possession, I would say
The woolly toy Tracey, my personal trainer, gave me when young.
I learnt to spy it from afar, then swoop down and seize,
But only on cue.  Mr Sheep goes everywhere with me now.

If I could wake up having gained one ability,
It would be the capacity for more facial expression.
It is so tedious to have one’s beak set in a permanent frown.

My greatest talent is impersonation—
To simulate a person’s idea of an owl.
Sadly, I owe my success to typecasting.

My greatest fear is to be found wanting.

At the premiere party, the women were not very clothed. 
It is of advantage to be clad always in feathers.

I allowed fake friends to pet me.
My picture was taken several times with the boy.
I enjoy parties because otherwise I see only Tracey.
Afterwards, you wonder what the glitter was for.

Double Wedding, 1615

                                                                 Anne of Austria, sister of Philip IV, to King Louis XIII of France;

                                                                 Isabella of Bourbon, sister of Louis XIII, to King Philip IV of Spain

We are laced taut

As an archer’s bow strung with catgut, a lean

And deadly spring to the touch.  At each breath

Our stomachs press whalebone, seven bent fingers

Stiff as our own ribs and wrapped in linen, leaving

The fine print of their weave on our skin.  We are wired

For great things and small movements, hooped

To glide like gigantic orchids, full-

Blown, slow-footed, and deliberate

In error.  Afterwards we will bear the strange marks

Of another house, gold arms on a gold collar,

But for now no other jewels hang about our necks

Than these:  pearls knotted with string, clasped

With velvet, and fitted just the length

To choke us.  This day will slip from us

Shedding marquisette, point d’esprit, zibelline, trailing

Taffeta and broché behind it;  it will leave us bare-

Handed and desperate to remember what we were

Before it, and it will take everything we have

To recollect what we wore when we walked

The length of the nave without stopping, how we kept

Our eyes straight and unturning until it was over.