Poetry By John Miller

Clinton Steeds CC




Like Vines Know to Climb


Just west of Lake Charles, false dawn glows so bright 
it all-but swallows the glare of Interstate lights.

I speed through miles of chemical refineries,
their amber bulbs twinkling from distillation columns,

as gas flares billow in jagged, violet banners.
Welcome to the South: the glass half empty, the wound 

that refuses to heal. The lie you tell to stay whole.
Here, in our land of never-was, folks court defeat 

like vines know to climb: desperate, un-reconstructed.
Road-weary, I pull off at a Mississippi rest stop

doze beneath my dimmed halo, and wake 
an instant before the Trooper's dark knuckles rap.  

We chat – my people come from Pelahatchie, 
his from D’Lo. I drive on, praying with every breath

the old defiance is waning, a moon in its final crescent
— that a tide beyond all reckoning is rising.




Hailing from Eugene Walter's Kingdom of Ghosts and Monkeys, John Miller was sent to look up words so often as a kid that he slept with a dictionary. His poems have appeared in: Poetry South, Rockvale Review, Sheila Na Gig, and elsewhere. Fernwood Press published his collection, How My Father Became a Boat, in 2025. Paper Nautilus Press published his chapbook, Heat Lightning, in 2017. 
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