By Amy Miller
Featured Art: “Pony Up” by Alex Brice

I wonder if she says a prayer before
she bustles into the room, all smiles and sweet
accented English, tongue a rolling horse
in a field of Russian consonants. My feet  

or scalp or inner thigh might pronounce
a sentence on my life: she incants
asymmetry, border, color in three rounds,
four, the marketeer’s or pastor’s chant.  

She’s here-and-now, no penance crap to pay,
no questions of the beach, my tans, my youth,
for everybody’s sinned already, way
too late to rein those horses in. Truth: 

I did my praying driving here. Lord,
let her eye be ruthless. Thorough. Bored.  

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Amy Miller is the author of Astronauts (Beloit Poetry Journal Press), which was a finalist for the Oregon Book Award, and The Trouble with New England Girls (Concrete Wolf Press). Her work has appeared in Copper Nickel, Gulf Coast, The Missouri Review, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and ZYZZYVA. She works as a communications editor for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.