Three Poems
Jim Daniels
Flight
I'm looking for the last cloud's
dark lining, the last true sin
for those who didn't stop counting.
Why demand bedtime stories
when morning's shards
slice them to ribbons? [End Page 37]
Tonight I ate fresh eggs
for dinner, true dawn.
I have met these small hens
and I will testify
I'd eat them too,
me lips bleeding with their juices.
My screen glows in the dark
just like yours.
When I pick cherries
I pick the stem too,
just to throw it away later.
That's the only explanation I have
for red wine and dark secrets.
Somebody's sighing in the other room,
a late request for explanation.
It begins to rain on all my misspelled
scenarios. Two dogs fight viciously
and everyone forgets. Even sin
is not so easily named or located,
identified, specimined. If we could be
innoculated against it, would we?
One cloud drifts by as if it has direction.
On our first flight, my children were amazed
to watch the plane's wing disappear,
wondering what held us aloft.
We are still wondering. [End Page 38]
Ohio Turnpike Opens New Rest Areas
A bee stuck to my windshield wiper
as my daughter sings
"The Sound of Music"
in her car seat behind me
wanting the bee gone.
It swishes and smears stubborn
on the wiper. We talk about Nazis
and nuns. We both have to go
but we wait for the new rest stop
with the private family bathroom
though when we finally arrive
we wait squirming minutes before
a woman unlocks the door
and steps out alone, her eyes
glazed with locked-door drugs.
My daughter didn't want to get out
of the car. I said no Nazis here,
no bees here - another lie. I got out
and brushed the dead one away.
I held her hand and led her in. [End Page 39]
Lake Superior Rocks
My children collect stones each day,
and each night I return them to the lake.
Off shore, an island looms, tempting.
You can walk out to it, but every year
someone drowns doing so. The children
are beginning to harmonize when they
sing in the backseat. July here, but still
signs of snow everywhere - ramps
and flags to stay above the snow line.
The rocks are beautiful enough
to be called Pictured Rocks and declared
a national lakeshore. The cold water
numbs us instantly. Swimming
is a relative term. The low waves wash
over our pretty stones. We lift them -
toss and watch the splash. Nothing
ever changes. The children are amazed
by sheer numbers. Heavy
with color and the iced years,
the rocks endlessly line the shore.
Who put them here? my son asks.
I did, I say, and it's partly true.
Jim Daniels's most recent book of poems is Night with Drive-by Shooting Stars (New Issues P, 2002).
