By David P. Miller
encased in concert black, bare
from elbows to finger ends,
conceal their heads behind
their instruments’ shoulders,
the harps gentled back
off their feet, nuzzled into
their players’ shoulders.
Four arms, nearly bodiless,
rise together behind the final rank
of violins, stretch across grillwork
tensed from neck to soundboard.
Fingertips and string speech.
Flat palms and silence. Two harps
arc forward, restored to their feet.
Harpists’ heartbeats freshen the blood
of four arms fallen from sight.
David P. Miller’s collection, Bend in the Stair, was published by Lily Poetry Review Books in 2021. Sprawled Asleep was published by Nixes Mate Books in 2019. His poems have received Best of the Net and Pushcart nominations, and have appeared in Meat for Tea, Lily Poetry Review, Reed Magazine, LEON Literary Review, Solstice, Salamander, Tar River Poetry, Kestrel, Vincent Brothers Review, and Nixes Mate Review, among other journals. His poems “Interview” and “And You” were included in an issue of Magma (UK) focused on teaching poetry to secondary school students. He lives in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. https://www.pw.org/node/1072071