Accidental encounters
make tides possible,
or breath. The moon circles,
a controlled, daily near miss
pulling tides and weather;
orbited evidence
of primordial chaining
similar to the random engulfment
that addicts us to oxygen;
our 36 possible mothers
rising from one mitochondrial Eve.
Wisdom, like coffee, is never good instant.
You hold the keys to success. Don’t lock them in the trunk.
Chinese Zodiac gone bad: the snake swallows the rabbit.
Chinese Zodiac revenge: the horse tramples the snake.
The dragon breathes on the horse, making a fire horse.
Secrets are best kept in the bones, far from the mouth.
You will be hungry later. Swallow the rabbit.
Be prepared to get stepped on.
April snow is sullen,
heavy, yellowed with pollen
but determined
to stall budding.
We shake our heads at flakes
falling past their season,
mutter threats against weather
as we take out shovels and brushes
just put away,
but my farmer neighbors
welcome it, call it
poor man’s manure,
till it deep as any other fertilizer
but sweeter-scented,
the metallic tang of ice
worked deep into spring soil.
If she were cut,
if those had been knives
and not penises
penetrating,
if those were bruises
and not black magic marker
scrawling who was there
on her tits
as if she wore a wall
for graffiti
and not skin,
if they had painted her
with anything but sperm
she would not be called slut
but survivor, and no-one
would take pictures on cell phones
for bragging rights;
then this would not be rape
but the cleanness of murder,
the purity of sacrifice,
and nobody asks for that:
no matter what they wear,
no matter what they drink,
no matter if no was spoken
if she were awake to say it,
but that word has the weight
and strength of feathers
falling; and she,
bare of everything
but pin-feathers
carries the shame
Other mothers might not
drive their sons to school
in striped sleep pants–
patterned neon tiger legs
far from camouflage
unfit for stalking; smoking,
snarling and showing teeth to the radio,
muttering poetry while those other mothers
speak tongues in church,
but whose worship is authentic?
I am the mother
who eats homework
and lets him have
cold pizza for breakfast,
more nourishing
than colored sugar loops
for energy he needs
to live defiantly
outside the box,
stomping it flat.
Susan Daniels Poetry 
Catastrophe
Erasure from http://www.livingunderdrones.org/victim-stories/, and from http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/2003/n_9189/index1.html,
Two missiles fired at our hujra
we didn’t hear the missile and then it was there
when I gained consciousness,
there was a bandage on my eye.
I didn’t know what happened
I could only see from one.
When you start to think about the numbers
it doesn’t seem possible I’m alive.
When we got hit
my father’s body was scattered.
I am not able to walk anymore.
I felt the walls next to me crack and buckle on top of me.
Someone surfed the collapse and lived.
All I remember is a blast,
and I saw fire
before I lost consciousness.
The driver and I lost our legs.
You’re alive. What bad days do you have?
Everyone else feels like 9/11 was a long time ago.
I still feel like we are stuck on September 12, not really able to move beyond it.
There were lots of drones wandering over that day.
They were wandering all over.
No one realizes about the wind.
I felt something in my heart.
I was drinking tea when I found out.
You feel like throwing everything away,
because you feel death—
the body was put into a box.
I took it to my village.
At the time of Fajr, I took it to my home.
It was a combination
of me running
and getting blown down.
Every time they are in the air,
they can be heard.
We did not know that America existed.
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