WHIMSY
the madrigal, volume iii
The Terms:
by devon miller-duggan
That if I step out of my body I would break,
having been neither a bridge
crossing a ravine too deep to see a river below,
or the ravine itself. I have been
neither soft-muzzled pony greeting the mother who crossed nor the hand alive and gentling its mane.
Her last breath was highway,
cessation, soughing willow, grazing my face as it passed.
To please the earth and all that is therein,
hereafter I will break, perhaps gladly.
Devon Miller-Duggan has published poems in Margie, The Antioch Review, Massachusetts Review, and Spillway. She teaches at the University of Delaware. Her books include Pinning the Bird to the Wall (Tres Chicas Books, 2008), Alphabet Year, (Wipf & Stock, 2017), The Slow Salute, Lithic Press Chapbook Competition Winner, 2018).