by Jim Daniels

Faith in Humanity, Part 2

When the day starts with an oblivious bike ride based on weather forecasts, not on your own view of heavy gray above your head, so when it starts to rain, you blithely keep on pedaling—faster, further away—and in a small town in the middle of nowhere you stop for scorched coffee in a bar and drip onto the floor mopped with the angry tears of the three and a half drunks lined up, starting early, what with the rain and all, then what was the point of waking up, and who the fuck was I, and why was I adorned in tight neon and wearing a fucking helmet? then you turn around and head back the other way into it, harder, in your face now, trucks falling in love with your bike, or so it appears due to close proximity, etc., and the phone in your pocket’s getting soaked so you shove it down your shorts and hope for the best, no one to call for rescue or sympathy, you idiot, and when you finally get home you unclaw your hands from the bike and dive into a hot shower where you wait for your toes to answer the most basic of questions, then all the hot tea in the world just makes you pee and feel sorry for your stupid ass, almost dark now, rain not letting up, the unabashed weathermen all jazzed up and onto flooding now, standing in it while off-camera somebody waits in a van with a hot towel and the cup of coffee you should have gotten, oh, but now somebody’s kicking at your door: Pete from next door, dripping an enormous smile, his thick hands full of fresh eggs from his hens
held out
to you.
 

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Jim Daniels is the author of numerous poetry books, including the recent Rowing Inland, Wayne State University Press, and Street Calligraphy, Steel Toe Books, and the forthcoming The Middle Ages, Red Mountain Press. A native of Detroit, Daniels is the Thomas Stockham University Professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University.