James Miller
Leo, For Alice Coltrane
I sample four spears of roasted
asparagus. Crunched tips, rescued
from the boil.
Wurlitzer rides up, late for dinner.
She says: water my horses,
then wash your hands.
She says, be not afraid
of simplicity!
Dumps her sack of everything
on the carpet. The kids dive in like seals.
I pick out a few beauties, subtle
enough to slip through customs: chalcedony,
chant,
Andean air
wing-spread
for Washington.
—Submitted on 11/13/2020
James Miller’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Cold Mountain Review, The Maine Review, Lunch Ticket, The Atlanta Review, Thin Air, and other journals. He won the Connecticut Poet Award in 2020 and lives near Houston.
SUBMIT to Transition: Poems in the Afterglow via our SUBMITTABLE site.
If you enjoyed today’s poem and you value What Rough Beast, consider making a donation to Indolent Books, a nonprofit poetry press.
