Poetry Suite by Maureen Daniels
“marmalade ringlets revolving like fire
lit swans in snow banks”
Poetry Suite by Maureen Daniels
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MY MOTHER’S BESTIARY
You didn’t know me
when I worked with the animals
emptying fur-
locked cages into dustbins,
un-becoming human
while the den mother of my madness
bolted me into the blue
with her suicides.
I was a madder-
haired girl minus freckles
distracted by blistering
figs, an omen of metamorphosis
numbed by rabid
jaws and frothing.
All I wanted
was my own muscled
Tornado rearing against the immaculate
garden, someone to gallop me
out of the home, trample
the henning, shed
that motherish lust.
But those dumb beasts
gave me nothing,
leaked everywhere, soiled
my imagined world and now
each woman posed
on her back
marks her territory.
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HUNTING FOR GHOST GIRL
We were followers of the lighthouse
ghost, carrying our lanterns
and our quivers. On the island
of willowthewisps and amber
thrones, we broke into groups
for hunting: porcelain
landmarks of girlhood,
purrs of laughter and the shadow of her
marmalade ringlets revolving like fire
lit swans in snow banks
around the circle of broken ice.
We were drowning in her
succulent sea: the hum and grey
overture of wind siphoned
the fog and we left the landscape empty
handed, our bows slung
across our bodies like ribbons
and the ink dark of our minds
reminding us in the beam of this light
we were not ghosts yet.
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CAMPERS OF THE UNDERWORLD
Fell asleep in the belly of a log
sticky in my rhinestones and pharoah’s costume.
I was sober but still weaving.
The Yosemite stars cackling in their distant covens.
Near the highway
I planted the dimes from my pockets
inside a vacant rabbit hole.
Dreaming of statues,
I let the fires of the underworld
enter me.
This does not mean I became free
to hatch the eggs in your marriage nest.
What I love most in this landscape
is the purring hum of the feral half-light
as the danger forgets herself.
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NEW LIFE
Beneath the grim light and sea
of masked faces, it was not
the first time I’d given up
my body. He was still
inside me, humongous,
bent on breaking earth. But,
how to get him out? We were
locked together for months
and now these last hours of ours,
his blatant refusal to let me go.
Not like my daughter who shot
straight out, confirmed as any
arrow, her whole life a perfect
bull’s eye. I was afraid of him
coming too slowly because
how many words are there
in the language of extinction?
Already, I’d trapped him,
whatever it is the body will hold.
They rolled out the table of scalpels
and with two quick cuts the blood
rushed out of me, almost cold
amidst this feverish birth.
Then came the silent vacuum,
the watermelon heft of him,
the slick passage of his magnitude.
The room was full of
dissonant healers beaming
to life. They lifted him up
and placed him on top of me,
heart to my heart, slobbering
skin to my skin, his feet
stretched to my thighs,
the awesome length of him.
But he was silent, so silent
when the frenzy of his
life began, not breathing.
Touch him, someone said,
because I had not yet dared
to move so I cupped the back
of his head in my hand
and thought, breathe.
Breathe some part of me
said. Just take that one breath
so I can say that you lived.
And then he did.
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Header drawing by Bárbara Moura. To view a gallery of her illustrations, go here.
Maureen Daniels was raised in Northern California and England, but fled to New York City as soon as she was old enough to buy her own cigarettes. She attended college in order to study English and Theatre with heavily medicated professors. She has won awards for visual art, Equestrian riding, and guinea pig breeding. She enjoys watching reruns of Absolutely Fabulous, cooking from Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes, and collecting stickers found in fruit and vegetable sections of various grocery stores. She dislikes country music, Barbies, and writing author biographies. Maureen continues to live in New York with her offspring and a Dalmatian named Pink. She also teaches at Berkeley College.