Spray-Painted Swastika
Barbara Daniels
Spray-Painted Swastika
I fell in love with leaves, their velvety
light-green undersides, lobes,
complex venation. I walked among trees
every day till I found a swastika
painted on asphalt. The Paulownia,
the gingko. They say nothing.
And stalwart native trees—suppose
they fell in love with the starlight?
Or the moon taking tonight’s
trajectory through clouds
and hollow spaces? Imagine
the Paulownia seeing its way
back to China or Vietnam,
umbrella leaves shining, cuts
that won’t heal, dark sap oozing
from the bole. I love the outcasts,
the sassafras struggling to right itself,
willow that twists and falls.
Hovering
I can survive the rain. I can
survive pans and dishes
from last week piled in the kitchen,
scorched food clotting them,
stale smell of burning.
I can survive my reflection
in the smudged cheeks of the toaster.
But I suffer from dreams
in dead languages, scholars on elevators,
lost souls in long black capes.
They say pronouns should have
antecedents—he, that dangerous
pronoun we. Shouldn’t souls (if we
have souls) hover above
these words? If you speak,
do faces rise toward the visible
as if they hear and see? Look
at the letters on this page. Do winged
creatures drop lightly down
to touch and kiss this book?
Ask
You ask for moonlight
borne on a bent rim
of silver, rose-tinted
horizon, stars faithful
as holy wives. You get
windstorms. A fury
of shopping carts rockets
through water. You get
wet skin, cold coffee.
Not the shining
you ask for. Balloon-red
cans hop and clatter
into the gutter. Your
pulse beats, your lips
numb, fingers chilled.
You’re always hungry.
Ask for fried chicken,
coleslaw, fries, salt
on your mouth and hands.
Snow geese you asked for
are back from the tundra.
They sleep in the refuge.
If they wake at night
they will be near each other.
Barbara Daniels’s Talk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press in 2020. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Lake Effect, Cleaver, Faultline, Small Orange, Meridian, and elsewhere. Barbara Daniels received a 2020 fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.