Barbara Daniels

Signs You May Have an Anxiety Disorder

You pretend to like a friend’s dog,

its wet breath and sly

repositioning next to, then

onto, your lap. You read

the word love as Iowa. Loss

pocks the surface of your face.

Green mold shames your car

stalled at the raveled edge

of the yard. A vulture flaps

to the street, catches your image

in its cold eye. You touch

your scrap-metal teeth,

sharpen your pencils

with a knife, choose paper,

and take up waiting.

Slices of light slant

into your room like metal

pincers. A metronome

gasps. What you write is

so small no one reads it.

The legible word is regret.

Barbara Daniels’s Talk to the Lioness was published by Casa de Cinco Hermanas Press in 2020. Her poetry has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Mid-American Review, and elsewhere. Barbara Daniels received a 2020 fellowship from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.