Daisy Bell

by Matt Schroeder

art by Emmanuel de Witte

the only thing worth worrying about
        is a palmful of honey on a summer day
                 or the heart         hot as an eggless pan

        if it doesn’t make sense make it over-easy
make it so sweet men would die for it
                     make it in the image you were made in

whispers believe said-image is who you loved most
                        in your last life which could have been
       a stone a ribbon a stray who had had a home

                        but then lost it to the same hand that threw
            the quickening double-dutch of past-perfect
 who will have to answer for all the wasted chalk

            & where does this land us anyway?
                        God’s grease-choir singing
  I’m half crazy / all for the love of you

the thrill of public domain as familiar
            as a street we can walk in our mind
                        & be brave enough to call it ours

silence the earliest lyric we learned to love
                                     or was it the music of our mothers’
love rattling the pipes above our growing heads?

           A particular Buddhist belief finds us floating
        slowly over to-be parents as they cue up the music
& whomever we fall most in love with during their love

           places our gender opposite them
           when finally sown we begin to root
now from a dollop of honey comes the egg

               what happens if I love my father the most
                        until he puts his hands on me for the first time
or my mother until she pulls my hair out in a fight?

         What if I find it within myself to love them both
        in equal yet different measures but can’t hold on to it all
if the cords get tangled & slip out of my hand?

Could I watch this love balloon away from us
            floating across the silence of a parking lot
                         in the soft purple of a sun just barely set

 could I stop with all the questions
& just let that be enough

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