Electric Guitar

Electric guitar:
blasting, blazing, slamming, slashing.
Bright like a knife, thin silver strings,
a trio of plastic knobs marked with
short bars turned to 10, switches
switched to ON.
Wires run routed veins to hum-
bucker PAF pick-ups.
Whammy bar, pickguard, the raised rectangle
of the bridge like a piece of cuneiform.

Frictionless finish of
tobacco sunburst-obsidian-pewter-
emerald-fluorescent green-black satin-
banana yellow-midnight blue-
candy apple, fire engine red over a
body of hand-oiled wood seasoned like beef in
a long cool dark dry room, ebony squares
marking golden frets over a sawed neck hung
from a low ceiling on a padded hook.

Locking nut like a lowered gate
to the castle of the headstock,
machine heads tuned tight, the
mother-of-pearl diamond
askance and quartered then sectioned.
Lastly one small word at the crown in
a careless, arrogant script:
Gibson.

Copyright © Christopher Miller 2003

Soup with a Package of Crackers

Soup with a package of crackers
mashed and scooped with a white plastic spoon
in an orange booth by a pristine plate glass window
with a second-story view of Seventh Avenue.

On the table
grains of rice in the salt shaker,
flimsy napkins in a sharp, metal holder,
a sliver of wet onion carelessly flung
like a fish over the lip of the bowl, smacked
flat on the formica.

Sweet Swiss cheese melted, curled, and
strung all about the lips of the bowl, chewy
and delicate like cooked clouds.
The shiny broth salty and mineralistic, as if
strained by the skyscrapers.

Copyright © Christopher Miller 2003

What Sarah Said

Look
I never said that,
I never said that we could do you know just some oral things.
Really could you even stand that, stand doing just that?
Could you stand doing only you know some oral things?

Yes I do always chew on my brushes it doesn't
mean anything. It means
I chew on my brushes.

Also
my mother she trusts me to be here
like this, in here, with you, alone now. That's why she left us here
today, even though she saw you with your shirt off again
she left us here alone anyway. Please put your shirt back on.
Just put your shirt back on right now.

Let me just paint your face.
Just stand there.
Don't speak.

I mean
who knows what would happen if we did try to just do that,
just do some oral things? After what I told you, what I said
about being tied up with the vines in the jungle to this log like a,
like, well you know, and the jaguars and the snakes and the,
well you know. I'm not normal that way.
I'm an artist.

I mean
really could you even stand that?

Besides I believe in Jesus.

Copyright © Christopher Miller 2003

Woman in a Long Red Coat

Woman in a long red coat:
blonde
heels
lipstick
white tights.

Woman in a long red coat:
glasses
briefcase
wristwatch
brunette.

Woman in a long red coat:
car keys
thin lips
sneakers
baby stroller.

Woman in a long red coat:
purse
pearls
pauses
pardon?

Woman in a long red coat:
black boots
mittens
dyed hair
nose ring.

Woman in a long red coat:
blonde
car keys
purse
black boots.

Copyright © Christopher Miller 2003

Combine

Up ahead a hedgehog twitches
in the center of the road.
The brown tail spins as if
it might push the mashed body
to the dry safety of the yellow grass
along the drainage ditch.
The tummy exploded and
flat as a plank.

A green combine with
yellow safety stripes sits
in a sea of corn. Dusty tires,
an aluminum roof glinting
a perfect metallic square of sun,
an American flag tied
to the antenna.

Sunday sedans, pick-ups rush by
rush over the blackened patch of
squirming hedgehog guts, rush by the
back paws still working, digging
up at the summer sky.

In the instant passing from
the other lane, I see
spittle, foam, flecks of
blood in a small fountain
from the snout, from the teethy mouth.
The tail like a frustrated propeller and
The hot steaming fear rising
like a scent.

Turning around, accelerating, and
carefully aligning the tire with
the fuzzy head, the light of the
combine roof blasts my
wet sloppy eyes.

Copyright © Christopher Miller 2003