Two Poems By Savannah S. Miller
Seeing the National Guard at the hair salon
it’s dark times in Tennessee
when they came for California
the whole world screamed
now it seems so quiet like the
moment after a last gasp of life
we have been dying for so long
there’s waste to the south
dumping into an ancient river
musk in the air carried on a
strong southern wind
the Bible Belt has cracked across
our backs as retribution for
a crime they will not name
trains pass through town and
leave again carrying cargo
worth more than the lives of those
who hop aboard in the dead of night
getting dropped off somewhere
anywhere but here
they board up the clinics and
arrest those who made appointments
uniformed men on street corners
watching the way our eyes move
rapid and darting like animals
Tyre Nichols just wanted to get home
my mother made sure I never
watched the real world so I did not
know how awful it could
sound until far too late
how blissfully ignorant I could be
driving by sprawling mansions
in the east and over potholes
in the rest neglected roads like
the people who built them
singing the broken blues that
once called me here
most poets are tortured for less
but who am I sitting in my 2018
car at a random checkpoint
praying the wine bottle in the back
is not cracked open on accident
it remains well hidden in a
Trader Joe’s bag
I was such a happy child
if I closed my eyes none of this
would come for me at all and
many days I cannot read
the news they tell me
it is okay to protect my peace but
what a privilege to have a phone
I-85
listening to Jo Dee Messina on an old black top
somewhere in the southern part of the state
one headlight illuminating yellow dashes on the road
I have seen three deer today
only one was living when I noticed
two corpses on the side of the road discontent
staring at me and wondering why
I was twenty minutes too late
grass is the only thing left growing now
the trees barren and soundless
when the winter comes the hunters
can take on the woods
songs like these always remind me of a blue grass fiddle
through the radio of a grandfather’s truck
driving past fields of corn and soy or cotton
I never saw dead deer then
maybe he kept me from it
spoke to me so much I had no choice but
to look at him in wonder at
whatever stories he had told
a couple years in Okinawa and a chest
full of letters between two lovers and
a jealous Uncle Sam who would not
approve his leave time
they have been together sixty-six years
still there is information classified like
the codes and which picture of her he
stole for overseas
there are more dead deer now on the sides
choosing an end by impact rather than stealth
he used to hunt sometimes but
never the deer
turkeys and rabbits or other fowl with
just a bow and arrow no explosions
he is not particularly fond of loud or
the look in their eyes
this state will never be rid of him
long after he is gone I will cross the border
thinking only of his stories and
the foxes and bears
his hearing aids are too sensitive to
most music now or all is too quiet
yet when I ask him about his hearing
he always says I’m alright
Savannah S. Miller (she/her) is a writer across genre and form. Her work has been published or is forthcoming with the Rappahannock Review, Jelly Bucket, Modern Language Studies, Watershed Review and others. She is the author of the poetry collection Route 460 (Red Rook Press). Her play “The House” will receive its world premiere production in 2026. Read more at savannahsmiller.com.
