An Empty Cup, A Flight of Uncarpeted Stairs

                             after Edna St. Vincent Millay
                                            at the Longfellow House, Cambridge

Writing plein air poetry on foot
in Longfellow’s garden. The last of April
tripping face first into green
from the top of March’s glacier.
No single metaphor can do the work
of these bumblebees guzzling dry
the white blossoms, after the lid
of long vernal cold is finally flung away.
Not only the low boxwood borders
struggling past tan, or spike-fingered
rose bushes and their cramped buds.
But also this fulcrum moment
before we become frantic for shade.

David P. Miller’s chapbook, The Afterimages, was published by Červená Barva Press. His poems have recently appeared in Meat for Tea, river babble, Nixes Mate Review, Naugatuck RiverReview, HedgeApple, Gravel, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Peacock Journal, and What Rough Beast, among others. His poem “Kneeling Woman and Dog,” was included in the 2015 edition of

Best Indie Lit New England. With a background in experimental theater before turning to poetry, David was a member of the multidisciplinary Mobius Artists Group of Boston for 25 years. He was a librarian at Curry College in Milton, Mass., from which he retired in June 2018.