Glass: A Journal of Poetry Volume Two Issue One       

Jim Daniels

Moving to Miami 

Autumn—I don't even want to write it
here, palm trees stuck green
against orange sunset
without the glue of childhood.

Pennsylvania fall, brown leaves
slick with dew.

Old friends, our lives twirl us apart.
Yes, like falling leaves.

Old, we close like shells.
Random waves toss us clacking
against each other.

Wind hisses distant waves
of voices through trees.

Autumn leaves and the sea—
two trite things working their way
inside me toward

a stiff drink
of crushed leaves and seawater,
a cure for melancholy.

I remember the cry of a bird
echoing over a Pennsylvania pond.
What was it?

The name of a bird
            already skimming above 
                        the water of memory.