Title Pending

This municipal park air

turns everything it touches to pudding skin.

And visions of sugarplums

dancing on the head of a thumb drive...

We mark the pathway back, though

by now that way has gone viral,

and like everything else,

will soon leave us starved.

And winter is an unkempt beard,

you know that right?

Certain screws need tightened.

Certain senses, heightened.

Moving on to other ailments...

Love and the bread-and-butter

assortment of petty anxieties.

We get wilted and go on

beating about the ragged expanse

of brittle grass and jungle gyms,

leaving footprints in the snow

like notes on a score.

And yet each step still lacks music...

The noble power to thaw...

No mention of spontaneous combustion

in the forecast, only false starts and faces,

imaginary places where everyone

decks out in moth dust and goes

pitter-pattering through the pagan night.

I've practically given up

on my right to grievous self-expression,

I'm that dumb and particular.

A variegated shame.

I'd like to pause here a moment

and enjoy the lonesomeness

of this sphere. Yes, nothing here

but lonesomeness. Lithe,

tempestuous lonesomeness...

r. miller is an avant-garde poet residing in the wilds of Southern Pennsylvania, United States. Read the rest of "Title Pending" and other pieces by r. miller in New Reader Magazine's first issue, coming out in March. Subscribe now and your first two issues are free! https://www.newreadermagazine.com/