Wayne Miller
For Sean
When I was a boy
I was so often on a plane
in the empty sky
between my parents
in the indistinct care
of flight attendants
that when I handed you
over to the system
of the hospital
it felt like I
had put you on a plane
I imagined you
small in your seat
watching a screen
watching the clouds
the nation below
like a pincushion
where were you going
in that thin bright air
I walked to the vending machines
they made a dark
kind of center
the smallness I was
in those hours
was what I’d thought
my parents became
when I was gone
I tried to read
in my vinyl chair
while you were there
in that parentless place
but also inside
this bit of my childhood
which couldn’t protect you
but could
carry you back to me
like a plane
A Children’s Tale
Inside the grandmother is the wolf.
Inside the wolf is the grandmother.
Inside the child is a mind.
Inside the mind is his longing.
Wolf in the woods—symbol
inside a symbol. Inside the witch
is a child. Inside the body
is its death. (When you died
your body was sealed away
inside my mind.)
Inside the house are the pigs.
Inside the wolf is hunger.
Inside the tale is a world
beyond the glass the child
leans against—little pig
staring out the window
at adulthood.
The Obvious Metaphor
(Titan Submersible, 2023)
The rich have sealed themselves
inside their vessel
and we’re the nothing
beyond their thick windows
we’re the voices
they hear on the radio
but are we the wreck
they hope to explore?
are we the diminishing
air in there with them
air full of liquified
memories of childhood?
I don’t quite believe
we’re the pressure around them
when their bodies are pulverized
down into nothing
their minds will become
black holes in the darkness
and we’ll be the ones
who gather the wreckage
we’ll try to imagine
their thoughts in those moments
when they were together
with their hope and their terror
and I know
the next vessel we build for them
will be stronger
Wayne Miller is the author of six poetry collections, most recently We the Jury (Milkweed, 2021) and The End of Childhood, which is forthcoming in 2025. His awards include the UNT Rilke Prize, two Colorado Book Awards, a Pushcart Prize, an NEA Translation Fellowship, six individual awards from the Poetry Society of America, the Bess Hokin Prize, and a Fulbright Distinguished Scholarship to Northern Ireland. He teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, co-directs the Unsung Masters Series, and edits Copper Nickel.
