Window & workday: ceiling, California

A poem by Dan Alter.

Anthem for standing in the ceiling: California

burning at both ends, not as a metaphor

but as fire. Up the ladder a text arrives,

big fans on the 26th floor pushing dusted

air from one side to the other. Bay: a bed

of smoke the boat wakes float in, hope faintly

in the form of a text arrives. In the haze, cars,

buses crawling, double-length to standstill.

Not what I hoped, a flag of plastic flapping

downwind of the fans. California not

as in candle. In my anthem for double-length

standstill, up a ladder, boat wakes in a bay

smoked, ferries congregate at pierside in the state

of both ends burning. What I hoped, a text arrives—

Dan Alter

Dan Alter’s poems and reviews have been published in journals including Field, Fourteen Hills, Pank, and Zyzzyva; his first collection “My Little Book of Exiles” won the Poetry Prize for the 2022 Anne and Robert Cowan Writer’s Awards. He is a former fellow of the Arad Arts Project, and a member of the Community of Writers at Olympic Valley. He lives with his wife and daughter in Berkeley and makes his living as an IBEW electrician. He can be found online at danalter.net.