Poetry

 

 

Philip Miller

Crooked

Everything in my house is off a bit,
aslant, cater-cornered, out-of-kilter,
and I hate to use the word—but what other?—
crooked, like that picture hanging
in the guest room of Uncle Guy in the graveyard,
where he stands—no, lists to the left—
beside a tombstone on which he's hung
his black umbrella. Uncle looks toward the sky
as if in prayer, head cocked a trifle. His wife
with the weary eyes stares darkly askance.
Living off-balance must be in the blood,
for my father's face had a half-cocked,
startled look—as mine does—like a face
you might see looking over your left shoulder
at someone else caught in a mirror,
and one of my eyes veers to the right
as my father's leg did maneuvering tricky
sidewalks back home from bars to subside
into the same old wicker rocker I sit
in tonight, one rocker rocking out of its
socket, making an annoying clack, clack
so you know I'm still kicking.
Watching as I rock, the world's always
in motion, rolling up and down
and sideways, in three directions at once,
lilting, lurching, larking, and outside
the picture window with its broken sash askew,
the full moon on the wane,
still grinning its crooked grin!

 

A Walk in the Park

There they are, lips devouring lips,
two of them entwined as one
on a public bench beneath a tree
right where anyone can see,

including the two of us with the long
faces our friends say have begun
to resemble one another's. You glance
at me, then turn back to them—ourselves

of thirty years ago on a bench
smooching. You wear the same
old look you've worn for years:
disillusion's half-scowl, half-smile.

Watching you, I unlearn some notion, too,
find out the very thing I didn't want to know
about myself. I've spent more time reading
your eyes than great poems of the world.

I even notice when you smile in your sleep,
about to receive one of my dream kisses—
someone's kisses anyway! But I've learned
your face's geography precisely (eyes, lips, nose),

features that have begun to match my own.
So who knows whom I love the most—
you, from whom I cannot separate
my eyes, or myself, that I go back to you to find,

where you may find yourself as well,
where both ourselves sealed, taken in
by each other, one made of two,
ah, two as one.

 

The Flesh's Way

It would look silly if we could see
ourselves the way we watch
the gleaming couple
on the late-night cable movie:
the wild flailing, the arms akimbo,
the grasping and gripping,
though on film everything is slick,
rehearsed, the actors' moves so smooth,
parts so in tune, it looks like swimming
through the sheets,
with body doubles I've heard
standing in for stars
too famous to be so immodest.
And though these practiced lovers
remind us of our own lack of skill
when we flopped about,
stopped and started over, shifted weight,
yet there's a spot when their grinds
and groans get silly too,
and the movie stops convincing,
that moment in our own lovemaking
when urge took over will—
or was it will, the urge?—
and flesh began to have its way,
so we could only imagine
what happened next
as our amateur acrobatics ceased
and our flesh fell from our senses,
leaving them exposed purely,
as earlier we'd torn our night things
away like shed skins,
and nothing could stop us.

 

 

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