The List of Dangers

The black windows looked out onto the black lawn.
—Larry Levis

No one except the three daughters checked off
the list of dangers. It was like when the wolf ate
chalk to soften his voice, but the white goats

knew him by his black paws. They filled his gut
with stones and led him to water so black, it erased
itself from photographs. No one except the three

knew of hidden rooms in the forsythia, a brittle nest
for curling into when the neighbor boys chased them
through the yards. It was not a list of dangers,

but fears. Their father said they had to leave.
There would be no more safe enclosures.
No door of yellow, star-shaped flowers.

There were black boys in the city. They would be
waiting when the girls stepped off the school bus.
White flight, thought the daughters, as they fled

down a corridor of blossoming pear trees. A child
crossing the street repeated, Red hand changes
to white man walking. The sun was a saw blade,

a yellow circle with teeth. Terrible birds with plumage
of fire scorched whatever they touched: The black
mailbox opened its mouth to the black street.

The daughters checked them off. It was more than a list.
Each X clicked like a typewriter key, imprinting the sleep
of those who still slept. Nothing stays good for long—

not the new neighborhood with its wrist full of charms,
not the last tier of wedding cake in the icebox, white
and glittering like a glacier. No one was preserved,

an heirloom apple. Not even the three daughters
would taste exactly as girls did hundreds of years ago.