Today's poem is by Jim Daniels

The Holy Whispers
       

The stillness of Aunt Daisy's outhouse
nestled in a clump of trees out back
behind her tiny cottage near—
but not on—Lake Huron.

Our family's lot: to be near,
not on, though on stormy nights,
we could hear waves rage
crashing madly against shore.

The outhouse seat accommodated
Half-Uncle Hank's big ass.
His long sojourns in that small shed
left the boys to pee in the woods.

Daisy lost her first husband to a tractor
fire on their nearby farm
leaving her a widow with a daughter,
Cousin Beverly. Daisy and Henry

had no kids. God's will usually meant
something bad. A crucifix on the cottage wall
beside the starburst clock's loud ticking.
Aunt Daisy wore the same thin, faded housedress

every day of her life that wasn't Sunday.
What this boy remembers about sitting on the rim
of the outsized outhouse seat in the dark
is that it didn't smell as bad as what

the other kids said. All the shelter he'd need
was that small rickety box with the inside latch.
Toilet paper thin and wrinkled with dampness
but at least it wasn't a catalogue.

He was tired of cataloging his sins
in small boxes like that on the insides
of the church, the priceless shame
of mumbled penance.

Aunt Daisy sometimes carried
a rosary, jiggling it in her hand
like a pair of dice
though he never saw her pray.

In the close darkness he wiped
his ass and told no one his sins.
Outside, through that thin wall
he heard the lake's soft, gentle fizz.

Whatever the waves whispered
didn't have to be words.

Copyright © 2025 Jim Daniels All rights reserved
from What the House Knows
Terrapin Books
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission