Barbara Daniels
Lament
Paid mourners wrap skinny arms
around each other’s necks
and wail together. They keen
at the door of a hut, display belts,
sashes, cotton coats they ripped and
soiled. They drink as much brandy
as they are offered. Lachrymal glands
release water, sodium, prolactin,
lipids, potassium, urea. Men start the cocks
fighting. Women throw trinkets
into the woods. Tears ennoble them.
Light splashes like rain.
The Whistling Duck
I don’t believe in the whistling duck. Cold
strips the landscape at this time of year.
Mourning cloak butterflies squeeze
into crevices. Blood in their bodies slows.
I hate the cold, hate the workdays
that clog the week. Do whistling ducks roost
in quiet trees, making careful calls?
If I lived another life, could I have worked
in a vitamin store, sold pills till nine at night,
asked a customer for the time, driven home
in blinding snow, parked the car near laden trees,
paused the whirl of my pinwheel self
and stood outside in the whistling?
Barbara Daniels’sTalk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press in 2020. Her poetry has appeared in
Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. She received a 2020 fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.
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