she says her life’s a sitcom
& she’s lost the laugh-track,
as if we have one
unspooling & canned
between our ears
because sometimes
we need it to tell us
when the cartwheel down stairs
in perfect circles
the split pants &
the banana-peel slips
will be funny later
preferably before
1’ve told the one grinning now
to fuck off, and then in a month
i am laughing about it too
& now have to find that person
& tell them to unfuck themselves
which is difficult
if not impossible to do
today everything i say
will lift up the last word
of my sentences
defying gravity
why not live
as if every breath
is a question?
the package tells me
after the fact (because
that’s when i decided
to read it)
not to swallow these particular
purple pills with wine
& then finish the glass.
consider my cough
suppressed, but thought
fizzes into my mind
like bubbles in champagne
or cheap beer, foaming & forming
a head in my head
that was too full of you
to begin with
& the vacuum counts
as heavy machinery–
if i use it
under the influence
i might suck up the drapes
or a child. yes
the food processor
& the electric toothbrush
are forbidden
for now–
i’ll have to go manual
until this bubbling up stops.
***just some random silliness. Do not. ever. mix alka seltzer cold pills with wine while listening to Miles Davis. Trust me. While I am under the influence of such silliness, any comments addressed to this unworthy post should only be in limerick or haiku form. Or shadorma, if you are feeling especially ambitious.
such small differences kill
separating out the other
when the other
looks just like you
measured by the twist of a tongue
parsley, just one small sprig of green
dressing a plate
the way you say it
is the difference between a casual wave forward
or a bullet in the brain
these words need to flow east of my atlantic
to where it ends, & then further still.
this is no pond to skip stones over
casually, theoretically, virtually
& although i just broke 3 rules
of modern poetry,
physics & geography
will not fade or consent to crumble
between fingers
when i ignore them.
we bend & flow
to match the curve of the world
between us in this yearning,
but these are hard things
pulled from lightning & clay;
the truth inside stones
echoed in bone & spirit.
in the seconds i hear you
intimate across continental plates & ocean
lives separated by hours
make time a light thing,
an origami bird we fold & fold again
until it flies easily between us,
though the stars we trade whispers beneath
are my sun & your constellations.
where do cassava & sunflowers,
corn and wheat, savanna
& wooded valleys grow together,
though even the stones under our feet
might will it, they hold us separate
in their very holding together
dawn creates itself
fine light fingering
color into sky. the spin
on this axis assures
it is always dawn,
slipping past the reach of our eyes
& we, shaped of dust & spit
call it beginning,
this rise
as we see it
happening eternally
somewhere
Susan Daniels Poetry 