Daniel Dias Callahan

The Reaping

It’s the mechanical hum.
(Or am I waiting?)

Along the freeway
there is a scythed man.

His blade glistens against sunlight,
reflects a mirrored split:
                                        the fall—
dried grass forced away from itself
lands clumped along freeway
shoulder,
                                        the rise—
some catch sail, freed by the wind—
Monarchs
migrating north-northeast.

I envy his machinery.
Its thinning, clearing, cutting away the dead
grass—

Each pendulum slice, a sudden release of breath
            between tight lips
and tongue cupped molars.
            (Does Death look at me? Notice me
                                                                       driving by?)

It’s the mechanical hum
       of years
without coolant air conditioning.
On the radio,
love’s inaudible echo blends
into the freeway’s reverberation. This rusted ’72 Cutlass,
a velodrome of racing thought, dream.

The man—now faded
in the rearview—continues his labored release
because in summer
                                the September nights blend into fall
and the fires return—

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Daniel Dias Callahan is a writer from Sacramento, California. He received his Master of Fine Arts from the University of San Francisco and a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of San Diego. His work has appeared in California Quarterly, Sonora Review and Thin Air Magazine, among other publications. He is a former Poetry Editor for the online journal, Invisible City, and teaching fellow at the University of San Francisco.