After last night unclenched me,
I tipped my dream out, slid
its ruined kitchen and lost watch
into the dust bin. I was a purple bloom
in that dream, my head balanced,
mouth open to sing. No one had died yet.
A song’s almost visible body elated me.
Angels beat their white wings.
Was this, do you think, my real life?
Getting swept up in a bright whole
world, quiet water its only boundary?
I answer the phone, switch from ear
to ear, rising once to look down
on the Japanese maple, one of my sisters,
nearly my size but wide and leafy.
I end the call. My tests came out
right this time. I go out to the sun,
the day’s holy star. The persimmon tree
gently twists its leaves. Cracks have
broken the asphalt street into continents.
Weeds that pushed through and grew
toward the light are starting to bloom.
I honor the pines, the chirring robin. Wind
blows through me, and I bow my head.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 2.
Barbara Daniels’s most recent book, Talk to the Lioness, was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press. She also wrote Rose Fever and four chapbooks: Moon Kitchen, Black Sails, Quinn & Marie, and The Woman Who Tries to Believe. Her poems have appeared in Good River Review, Neologism, Rust & Moth, Lake, Cider Press Review, and elsewhere. She received four fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
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