Five Poems

by William Miller




Barbie Dolls

My sister had one, 
played with it for hours.

Barbie even had a beach house,
a sports car, too.

But she was too perky,
perfect, smiled as if
she never felt any pain.

Her perfect house
wasn’t like ours; my parents
fought by not fighting,
a wall of ice between them.

One afternoon, my mother
and sister were
at the grocery store.

I unscrewed Barbie’ s head,
put it inside an Easy Bake Oven,
and turned up the heat,
a single light bulb.

It didn’t take long before
the head exploded, goo
and blond hair stuck
to the walls.

I got whipped for that
with a leather belt,
had my father’s
full attention for once.

My sister got another Barbie,
seemed happy when
she played with it, until
one afternoon I snatched     
the doll from its pink case.

I put Barbie, face down,
on the railroad track
that ran near our house.

The train wheel cut through
her neck; the blond
head rolled into the ditch,
still smiling …

My parents divorced;
my sister was raised by
an aunt.  I lived with my
mother until I was old
enough to run away.

And I still hate Barbie,
her living sister in cute
sunglasses and yellow sundress.
She’ll never look twice at a 
short guy like me, malice
in my eyes.

And she’ll never pick me up
in her sports car, take me
to that perfect house
where there is no ice, no one
blows up the heads of dolls.

We won’t sit on her deck,
holding hands while the sun
goes down, bright smiles
on our plastic faces.

                                                          

St. Francis and the Leper

Before he preached,
before he did any holy
thing, Francis had
to eat with a leper.

And that was because
he feared the leper more
than other outcasts,
the blind, the maimed ...

One day, he bought
a loaf of plain bread
In the market, walked
and climbed his way

to the top of a rocky
hill above the town.
the lepers lived in a
cave, survived on small

donations from a church
that never sent a priest
to cleanse or even pray
for them.

Francis sat down beside
a man in a torn, brown
cloak, his face hidden
by a hood.

Francis sat close, close
enough to touch
the cracked, purple skin
of his fingers.

He tore off a piece
of bread, and Francis did too;
they ate in silence as there
were no words to say.

But that bread was like
manna to Francis, a gift
from heaven. His fear
was gone completely

when he kissed the leper's
feet ... On the twisted
path to town, Francis
knew it was time to preach

to poor men and women,
even animals,
God's creatures too.
and he would rebuild

a church fallen into
rubble, broken glass ...
One glorious Sunday,
the leper would wal

through the door first,
then the beaten,
limping donkey,
Christ's church on earth.



Dog Dreams

An old pit bull, he sleeps
on a throw rug
in my front room.

He kicks, grunts
and snarls as if chasing
or being chased.

This is just instinct,
I tell myself, how he
still survives in dreams.

But maybe that isn't all,
maybe he dreams of
a time long ago when

he and his kind roamed
the edges of Roman camps,
barked at any strange noise.

Before that he might have
been a wild, graveyard dog,
digging up corpses

gnawing the bones.
His deepest dream is
of iron gates he

guarded, the gates of hell
itself. He kept damned
souls from escaping ...

He wakes up slowly,
shakes his massive head
and waits for the leash.

We turn down a gas lit
street, and he still growls
at the meanest dogs.

And when the street
is empty, he barks
at things only he can see.



Boston Corbett

The man who killed the man
who killed Lincoln
went slowly insane.

He heard the voice of God,
telling him to fire through
a crack in the barn wall.

He shot Booth in the back
of the head, the wound
near Lincoln's own ...

In Washington, he was
a hero, even signed
autographs in taverns

or on wooden sidewalks.
He was discharged with honor,
lived off the reward

money, the killer's portion.
But some men wanted him
dead.   Southerners,

or those who loved 
the south in secret, called
him a coward, spat tobacco

juice at his feet. He hated
his fame, wanted to live
where no one knew him,

his face. He drifted west,
to Kansas, slept in a
cheap men's hotel.

But he dreamed Booth
returned for his blood
this time.   An angry crowd
stood behind him ...

He stopped eating,
walked the streets for three
days without sleep,
until they put him

in a limestone cell.
But he wasn't free,
not even there.
Lincoln's eyes were sad

but purposeful. His killer
was the handsome,
young actor before
the burning barn.

One sleepless night,
he pulled an iron bar
from the only window
and fled to Mexico.

Some said it was a dirt
farm in Minnesota ...
Most likely he died
alone, crazy from

pride and guilt,
never heard God's voice
again. He escaped from
history but not himself.



Texting While Driving

She only wanted to say hi,
send "lol" to a good friend
who lived just give
minutes away.

She got a text, sent
another, eyes off the road
for two seconds
when she crossed
the double line,
smashed into a truck ...

There was a church service,
and the preacher preached
about a wonderful young
woman, kind, cheerful,
never said a bad word
about anybody.

But God had his reasons,
a "plan for each of us,"
then called her home.

Walking back to their
cars from the grave,
many were checking
their phones, texting
or answering texts. 

Her brother and two pall bearers
rode in one car, but put
their phones away when
the engine turned over.

Halfway to the first house,
her brother got a text
he ignored, a second
that made him reach
into his pocket,
check caller ID.

The third, he had to answer,
was from a hot chick he'd
met in a club a week ago,
"really hot!"

He said he was driving;
she answered "What,
me wild?"

The one who lived
said no girl was worth
dying for, "though some babes
you've got to text
or lose forever."



Black Sharecroppers, 1930

In high cotton or not,
they had no place
left to go, no place
to rest before they
died of old age.

Their children were
dead from pleurisy
or worked in mills
so far north
they never came home.

They both agreed
it was their only choice--
soon they would be
blind or crippled
beneath the rusted roof.

And they dressed
in their church clothes,
helped each other
with the buttons,
put on their good shoes.

The pistol was a revolver,
handed down from
the war itself,
fired on a far-off
battlefield.

Slavery ended but hell
didn't, seed money
and a mule for
cotton owed at
the end of the season.

One bad year, and they
owed double the next,
until there was no escape,
just the hazy heat
and endless rows.

At the very end,
he pulled the cold
trigger on his
dear wife's bowed,
grey head.

He shot himself
before he had time
to think about
the awful thing he'd
just done ...

The young black family
that moved
into their house,
picked the summer
bolls clean.

They believed they'd
get ahead, never
see too much sun
or far too little,
plow their own graves.