Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


LOST WHITE BROTHER by JANE MILLER

First Line: WE ARE ABOUT / TO MOVE AWAY FROM GUYS GETTING MESSY
Last Line: MY LOVE.
Subject(s): ABSENCE; NEW MEXICO; SOLITUDE; SEPARATION; ISOLATION; LONELINESS;

We are about
to move away from guys getting messy
at their headquarters two tables down.

The you is gone, the bar vacuum is on,
the TV turned high,
casting a sunset on the opposite wall.
In the intelligent Taos Inn, a copy
of the historic Ansel Adams photo, @3Moonrise@1,
@3Hernandez, New Mexico@1, hangs.

Like, dehydration city,
like, work, like the spirit ants aren't going to move
out of the bowel of the valley, the ski resort.
If I go home I can sidle up to my bed
and arrange it so I slice the moon on my pillow
for the official margarita of the lost white brother,
hailed by prophecy. Lorca died this same age, 38.
Some people's parents are still alive, and there will be that to deal with;

and I have approached this close like a date, like a feeling.

Don't think you're alone
in needing to be alone.
Whether it's his last egg Mandelstam offers Akhmatova
upon her return, or my beer, my refrigerator open to you,
& you've seen my picture, you know with whom you're dealing,
we are the same lost white other,
obligated to hold the sun up in this culture until it rests
on the opposite wall like last night,
my love.



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