The Drowned Man

                        for Jeff Buckley

A man lay down in the bay,

joking, dressed in all his clothes. 

He sang to his friends. Then

he was gone until morning, his body

tangled in pilings a mile away. 

The undertow is the world

to watch out for. I don’t believe

there are other worlds, so small

I’d need lenses to see them, so far

years couldn’t take me there.

A horse loose on a back street clops

and chews and trails its reins. Fierce

white dogs wait by a broken fence.

And the friends? They stand helpless,

letting the cold tide turn. Or drink

from a bottle, watching oncoming cars.

Barbara Daniels' book, Rose Fever, was published by WordTech Press in 2008. She received two Individual Artist Fellowships from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Geraldine R. Dodge Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, and an MFA from Vermont College.