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Moonburn
Poetry by I.F. Miller
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Excerpts
How We Learned Biology
We nailed his legs
to the table
unzipped him
like a sweater
peeled back his skin
broke his breastbone
cut out his heart.
Next came lungs and liver
stained and sliced
thin as onion skin.
We tied knots
in his intestines
until the bell rang
then went home
for milk and cookies.
Wall Street
Uncle Izzy told strangers
he worked on Wall Street,
wore coat and tie
before he changed
into army surplus jacket
to sell newspapers
to the surge of suits
every weekday afternoon.
He didn’t imagine cathedrals
whose initiates preached
the Gospel of Dow Jones,
didn’t see the clock tower
cast its Argus eye
on amber shadows
that crept like assassins
toward the unreadable
stones in Trinity Churchyard.
At the hour of darkened windows,
he didn’t watch churchyard ghosts flit,
so lithe they never even disturbed
the papers lying in the gutter.
He didn’t know or care
that farmers once sold cartloads
of corn here, stuck elderly horses
on those too dumb to count teeth.
Uncle Izzy worked on Wall Street.
That was enough.
Uncanny Echoes of the Tao
It is written
On the mountain of the Immortals
ghosts leave no uncanny echoes.
I am not in such a place, for
in the silence, I hear
words forgotten, sighs
voices of the dead.
In a consciousness without form
they resonate from its corners.
My mother’s lullaby wants me to sleep
but the echoes are too strong
for they are made of nothing.
The Tao says
usefulness comes from what is not there, and
the sage, traveling all day
does not lose sight of his baggage
though there are beautiful things to see.
The echoes are useful.
They are my baggage.
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