Emily Jern-Miller’s recent work can be found in H_NGM_N, Fine Line Magazine, and in a chapbook, you are not a bird, forthcoming from Dancing Girl Press. She lives in the town where she grew up.
You never called me darling and the sleeves are still too long.
Nor honey, dear, or daughter. A name
gets cloaked in what intimacy obscures.
My friend asks a question about you your yielding shielded
by the sun. Barely down. Crickets. We never buried
any bit of you a tourist I would be. Am when I discuss
what we without. A bright earth claps its proper nouns
to stars. Say I meet up with you on an atoll Midway no wolves
but flight full of aspen. You know through every spread
of door my breath still curdles. A loss nimble thin chewing
the middle. We will one day sit a bench whose slat
bears your name. In a container now not even close to decent.