After the Fever: A Pastoral
       

After four months, the fever withdrew into her,

past the vanishing point, and now it was impossible

to remember how fully it had filled her,

like light soaking the tissue of a leaf. Outside,

the traffic thinned to a word—so we split a cigarette

on the porch with the speaker in the window

and listened to Robert Johnson press his voice

against the City (a crystal quivering in the microphone).

The heavy book in my hands never opened—

it was there only to keep me still.

When the last song ended, the notes dropped

from their thumbtacks back into the soil,

and then the sky had grown noticeably darker—

it wasn't late; it was simply going to rain.

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Copyright © 2011 Wayne Miller All rights reserved
from The City, Our City
Milkweed Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission