Daniel’s work online at www.seamlessmonument.com
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Daniel Paley Ellison
Sleeping Bodies
The sun pops below the bridge,
and in the next room, your sleeping bodies
may be having a dream that shakes your flesh.
Pale gray shadows from the street lights
hover on the ceiling in rectangles.
For the first time, you are just two bodies,
getting closer to death—
tired in the late afternoon
when you laid them down in my bed.
I thought, Yes. You have done vicious things.
It is the first time I think I’ll bury you,
on a sunset
much like tonight’s—
or take your ashes
to the sea
and the tiny bits
of what I’ve called mother and father—
I’ll throw into the waves.
Hitchhiking West
Hop on in, he said. Not to worry—
take this towel and dry yourself.
Inside the tractor trailer’s cab, that April night,
he winked to me, I don’t mind at all
if you get out of those wet clothes.
The windshield wipers parted the spring rains.
