errol miller
TO FAN THE FLAME
It is a sweet Southern season
with a fallen star in menopause
Granny is gone and Mama fills
her own vacant space, Papa is no different
all the comings, all the goings, the Aircastle
grieving in annihilation, that rutted road back
to childhood of not comfort nor dreamy
back rooms with cresting maidens undressing
down at Little Chicago, they
will all come out to meet us later
in the brackish chill of twilight
their thin limbs dissolving into water
an orange flare illuminating the river's edge
and I, in my pristine charm and rage
shall simply do nothing, herding
sheep for literature, transparent in my plight
soon it will be autumn in New England
in Oxford and in all the molting squares
of Dixie, I have no attachments
to red clay homes or bitchy Southern soil
assured of common shelter on higher ground
where gypsy moths flap away delirious
and I am forever young again.
