Susan Daniels Poetry

There are words we can’t say.
Words that if we speak them
are just sounds leading
to soap in the mouth
or hours in a bedroom
no longer safe. There are things
we don’t have words for, because no-one
speaks them or teaches them.
We can show the words only
acted out on dolls, nameless ones
we don’t play with.
They are as quiet as those things
done to us and the only words we know
are don’t tell, don’t think, don’t do
just be silent.

Just be good.

For the Duggar girls.

This was the day
that marked summer for me,
wearing white shoes
and counting farm stands
selling strawberries
on the way home.

Now, I find respite in ritual
whether I am placing flags
or arranging geraniums
or counting from memory
how many guns were fired
the day we put you in the earth

Finally alone.

chasing feathers
as if they are more
than evidence of flight

and perhaps simply sky
falling again
heavy-bellied on roofs
and bowing branches

as if feathers and clouds
have something in common
besides air

and my appetite
for the absurd
is something bigger
than breath