Barbara Daniels

Water Door

Empty dresses, cold on wire hangers,
reach for each other inside the bodies
of trucks. Water spreads across dull
asphalt. Black emeralds, black pearls.

Listen, stranger. Rain slashes
at windows and runs to the gutter.
It falls on lilies, carnations, roses,
sluicing through shadows.

A sulfurous fog brightens the freight yards.
Light trails back to its sources. Water
blots the field of stars. Is there a way
through the tangle of hangers?

Forget who was winning the race game,
the war game. You can do rain’s work,
smearing and shining. You are
dark water. You are the door.