She’s not my aunt by blood,
so I’ve a chance to taste her.

In a dream, we’re in the cellar.
She scoops milk from the chest
my father thought he’d hidden
where once slept every letter
he left like his life, unfinished:
            
             “dead is
              death embodied
              do not drink
              the dahlia”

He decided death in ways most boys cannot
forget, but when gust snuck through the graveyard
to my aunt and curled her skirt like blossoms
curl to frost, I found forgetfulness in heat.
 

Nicolas Miller | Once a senior editor of the Allegheny Review at Allegheny College and a five year veteran of the workshop curriculum, I am a 23-year-old poet and laborer from Corry, Pennsylvania. In May, I had my first poem published in Pif Magazine.