Amy Miller

My Ex, the Surgeon

He pried the heart
from an artichoke, sliced
the softest part thin. Trimmed
rinds and stems,
bled oil from a bottle
to a clean pan. Dried
a thousand apricots curling
over their empty cores.
His fingers made a sound—
the smallest crack, like seeds
in a distant feeder. When he traced
my shoulder, my eyes, he made
the same hesitant spark
(audible or imagined),
then a calibrated press
of tip to receptor, a layer
pushed back to bare
the nervous tissue
underneath.

Balloon Payment

Very tiny people live here. We like
the green felt lawns,
the Barbie attachés we brought
with our entire wardrobe inside.
The mice domesticate us. Coins
roll shut across the doorways.
Our neighbor rigged his sailboat
with a single dollar bill.
Not cheap—that’s the people
the next block down. Every time
we see them coming, we hammer
a few more toothpicks in the fence.

Amy Miller’s writing has appeared in Gulf Coast, Rattle, Willow Springs, and ZYZZYVA. Her full-length poetry collection The Trouble with New England Girls won the Louis Award from Concrete Wolf Press and will be published in 2018. http://writers-island.blogspot.com.