daniel is the youngest of four children. sometimes he wishes he could fly...

and if he could, he'd stay up there,
and not return for forty years.

he thinks he'd be better off.

daniel's father didn't come home last night; today no one is asking.
little elisabeth cried all night. the man can be a bastard. but the kids don't know:

when he leaves he's alone. not even himself to console himself -
spends gas and oxygen looking for the lost: tyler davis, age 18
before kids before bills before anyone but him, just me
and the days and the years
and nothin' to lose but my fears
and my hair
someday...

daniel wakes up at quarter to four, from a dream about jungles
and devils
and astronauts. daniel is wondering, halfway outloud,
why there's never a time for his brother and he.

they used to go swimming down the gravelly road--

daniel turns, hears the door shut; whoever was there
is gone now, but dan thinks he knows: stays perfectly still for a moment.

but knowing he was home pulls him out of his sheets, to the door
in time to hear it all happen.

an inevitability manifest
destiny to the dreamer -
the stairs reaching up to the breaking of bones.

daniel wishes for someone else these days,wishes for flight and for astronauts.
pushes tyler around the block once a day,
and looks up at the sky.

08/07/2003