The Rabbit’s Hole

You want to climb to the moon
that silvers tree trunks and broken leaves.

You’ve never liked night’s spilled-out
darkness, its smokers, fast dancers,
cars racing down slick back roads.

The barn owl sees the rabbit’s hole,
makes it a mad and desperate study.

Trade night for dawn that fills your body,
arrows out, strikes you, the yellow
of melons its singular element.

The owl sleeps by day, so you can
start waking and walking.

The rabbit’s hole trips you,
its entrance sticky with cobwebs.

The creek water makes sleep sounds,
sloshes, sighs, slowly turns over.

Barbara Daniels’ Talk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press in 2020. Her poetry has appeared in Lake Effect, Cleaver, Faultline, Small Orange, Meridian, and elsewhere. Barbara received a 2020 fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Read Barbara’s Best of the Net-nominated poem here.