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.
WISTERIA
An emerald leaf pales to acid green,
and water brightens in sloping light.
You also glitter, avid, watchful.
A thrush sings. Do you think it sounds
like it’s crying? You wait in a doorway.
The gods must see past you. They’re
bored, tired, turning their eyes
toward blooming trees. Wisteria
proves to be a weed tree climbing
all over collapsing buildings and
broken walls. Its heavy blossoms
hang from vines thick as your wrists.
Do you see a stone door and
behind it a second stone? What’s
the pattern? Twinning? Blockage?
The dead do return. They walk
and drink tea and turn away, lost
in the slowly swallowing dust.
A mirror keeps hold of the trembling
trees. Let’s praise the earth’s surfaces—
pebbles, wet footprints, broken glass.
