On the Beach
Tonight we’re driving along the South Shore,
looking for a party to crash. Adjunct hell, frayed Spanish grammar—
but Stevie prefers his Iberian cheeses.
Dairy farmers steep their rounds in caves up north, he tells me.
Slots carved in stone, cabrales throbbing in the dark.
Does the mold think, or dream?
Tendrils of consciousness
stroke all night to learn
counting.
How’s it taste? I ask about his wife—still busy converting? Tin roof—flat. Behind, Lake Michigan To the west, they know Chicago The stink is subtle here. Inside, the floor is all gray planks in her left hand.
At the back, a stage raised knee-high. Stevie shouts over the second song, She saved a beetle from underfoot, Now Stevie is scrolling through his phone. But scroll down. A chart of local beasties, Look at this one, A dancer stumbles into our table, The Blue The blue steamed jars for marinated pears. Preferred carry-ons, hotel beds, long drives west of Abilene. The blue forgot how to count change, how to fold bills for valet tips. Ordered fried shrimp—only on the Gulf, only where you can see fish being scraped and bled on the pier. The blue claimed to be translating Machado de Assis, but no longer answered email inquiries on his early chapters. Agreed to play Vexations, lasted just under two hours. The blue kept a box in the closet filled with letters from friends in prison. Breezed through Hannibal, MO without stopping to pee. The blue spent the summer changing sheets in hospice, wiping fecal smears from the floor. Googled mono no aware, took notes for an invited lecture. The blue melted mother rings, grandmother rings, marks of graduation. Always said, digging for a pool is digging a grave. Driver’s License Passport The Fold We You said A new bed, order A hovering James Miller is a native of the Texas Gulf Coast. He is published in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press) and the Marvelous Verses anthology (Daily Drunk Press). Recent pieces have appeared in Sugar House Review, Door Is a Jar, JMWW, Dunes Review, Psaltery & Lyre, CV2, and The Inflectionist Review. Follow on Twitter @AndrewM1621. Website: jamesmillerpoetry.com. Image: istockphoto.com Check out HFR’s book catalog, publicity list, submission manager, and buy merch from our Spring store. Follow us on Instagram and YouTube. Disclosure: HFR is an affiliate of Bookshop.org and we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Sales from Bookshop.org help support independent bookstores and small presses.
Like being born from a vat.
Easy enough, Stevie says.
I just slipped out
like tobacco brown
from a church cough.
Study classes, she comes home later and later,
Wednesdays and Fridays,
stuffed with potcluck and paperclipped readings.
Two steps up into song.
Past eleven, the stars are smeared with sweat.
laps false sand—tons bought and brought to make a beach.
A few drinkers stand in this shifting, look out over the long wet.
Miles off down east they see labor lights,
dim shadows of foundry towers.
will eventually come.
Blend of grease and burnoff,
a hint of freshwater fishscale,
like driftwood. Three dancers wobble in high heels,
leopard stretches, wracked blonde. The nearest holds a bottle
The singer coaxes Sweet Child O’ Mine
from his snakeskin tightpants,
a story about this stretch of Indiana.
How years ago they thought to play some shows here,
brought in their own soundsystem.
She would not sing on the night, though their rehearsals
had landed well. Drew a dozen faces in her notebook,
a dozen pages, signed each one.
carried it out to the bristling Marram grasses.
Came back in flat and clear
as a TV screen, sat
and drew again—is that Spain,
he asked, our best bedroom
in Barcelona?
Do you know the new Baedeker,
the secret word for travel?
each with at least two names.
Most won’t taste our toes,
they eat too fast.
not the kind Carla saved.
My sacred saint,
the Latin means “hairy wings.”
we spill the last of our share.
Stevie wipes drops
from his pants,
she wraps his arms round her waist.
They spin twice, quick,
faces wide
with weeping.
in my right pocket.
I pulled it from the drawer
of proofs. This morning, fear
not. One more year
of air.
The citizens
of our under-
sea city
have been promised.
Slow voice
on the PA—
take your seat
for a mimeograph.
Microfiche. Rotary club
speaker on bingo
tour.
Passport
in my right pocket.
Stamped three times,
I remember only
the first. Minnows
with leonine eyes,
hammerheads
and sullen squid.
Miles up
through the dark
to our sickened sun,
dusk and cheap birds
like burger change.
The man beside me
says it’s like showing
up for jury duty.
They check
your bags, call
every book
the Bible.
Alphabet
changes
every week—
never
the number.
stepped out
into autumn, Santiago
of the south.
Faint streaks
of smog. Stray dogs
on the street,
charity sweaters knitted
for their bellies.
it is time
to think
of accent
walls. Sea
cave
for the bedroom.
online. The drivers
will unpack
each plank.
I said,
there is a spot
in our backyard
next to the manhole
cover.
just above the waist,
a fold of air.
When
we get home,
I’ll show
you. Lay
a coin on
the invisible lip.
Two coins.
They will not
fall,
to the ground.
Heavy Feather Review 