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from Borderline Fortune: Three poems by Teresa K. Miller

Teresa K. Miller

semiahmoo / credit: em
semiahmoo / credit: em
I lift the ban—if you are gone,
you will speak your own language.

You broke my mother and so you broke
me, lost in the thicket of your misfortune.

Sharp brittle branches sticky with bird shit,
dusted with gray down.

If I had a child, she was already mine. We did it backward,
skipping time.

The mouth of the Duwamish smells like creosote. Gravel yard.
Freight train on a rusted trestle.

We lashed a raft together and set off paddling. I wasn’t
yet born. The water dried salty, reliable, cold.

I looked back and you were unqueened—
sudden, without ceremony

Afraid of me.

When did our tormenters become
so frail, pock-marked shell fragment,
grain of sand.

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Teresa K. Miller

A graduate of the Mills College MFA program and two-time National Poetry Series finalist, Teresa K. Miller is the author of sped (Sidebrow) and Forever No Lo (Tarpaulin Sky) as well as co-editor of Food First: Selected Writings from 40 Years of Movement Building (Food First Books). Her poems and essays have appeared in ZYZZYVA, DIAGRAM, Alternet, and elsewhere. More info is available at teresakmiller.net.

Author: Teresa K. Miller Tags: poetry Category: Poetry February 7, 2020

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Empty Mirror

Established in 2000 and edited by Denise Enck, Empty Mirror is an online literary magazine that publishes new work each Friday.

Each week EM features several poems each by one or two poets; reviews; critical essays; visual art; and personal essays.

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