Memoirs of the Childless

Hours before
pulling out of Hyde Park, it is
suggested that the oil might need
changing. Your engine spins
near-dry,

and the look
on their faces is not unlike
that judgement of parents on the weak,
who have failed to kill the lice
in their children’s
matted hair.

No room
for the dining table
this time—two months
on the lease and you’re leaving
Ikea beige behind. Taste of 1995,
chips ahoy and fuzzed milk,
not a single stain-rim
on its sainted
surface.

Pull off its legs
like a bug in extremis,
roll the flat-top sundial disk
down three flights, slide it behind
the stairs. Turn south to curl
in your mother’s
house,

stretch to touch
floor and ceiling. Another
inch and you’re ready for twenty,
thirty years of
teaching.

James Miller is a native of Houston, though he has spent time in the American Midwest, Europe, China, South America and India. Recent publications include Cold Mountain Review, The Maine Review, Lunch Ticket, Gravel, Main Street Rag, Verdad and Juked.

 

 

 

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