Winter Nights of '77

By Maeve Benz

“My child,” Pop says.  Daisy is collapsed, pink cheek on the cold floor, syncopated breaths, up, down-down, up, down-down.  He whispers like molasses. Sugar crystals lost in the black out west.  A desert daisy: exotic, alone.  Red light turns the snow to shattered garnet outside. He lies still.  She’s one sweater and a spine.  A mind marbled with art projects and swallowed thoughts away from him.  She hums Babylon.  Her eyes sting while he watches the sun rise.  There are days Daisy thinks she will never be a bride.  Pop strokes her hair, thick fingers through honeycomb.  Beneath the yellow: blighted herringbone.