bloom

phone rings.
i pick up. it's darwin on the phone.
"darwin" says darwin.
"er" i say.
"darwin" says darwin.
"yeah?" i say.
"darwin" says darwin.
"pity about the dinosaurs" i say.
"darwin" says darwin.
"pity about the passenger pigeons" i say.
"darwin" says darwin.
"all those little galapagos finches --
they're just so darn cute" i say.
"darwin" says darwin.
i think by now darwin is crying.
"their beaks" i say, "their lovely little beaks
are just so, well, so useful, so practical."
by now i'm crying too.
"darwin" says darwin.
"good-bye" i say.
"darwin" says darwin.
i hear the "click" on the other end.
i hang up.
i'm very sad, but kinda, well, not sad at
all.  then i have
pancakes for breakfast. with blueberries.
genetic miracles. bigger than they ever were
before.

--Carl Miller Daniels (This poem first appeared in My Favorite Bullet, June 2008, Vol. 8, Issue 2. It was recently published as a broadside by 48th Street Press. And it also appears in my book String Bean, published by BareBackPress in March of 2018.)