David Miller
Spiritual Letters (Series 4, #3)
Glass walls reflecting traffic, other buildings, passers-by. Clouds, birds, paper blown in gusts.
The woman walked along the street at night, playing a wooden slide-whistle. Already late,
you wanted to stop at the florist’s so we could buy chrysanthemums for my friends. A young
man stood at the end of the train carriage and delivered a long, apologetic speech about being
homeless. He didn’t try to collect any money, but rushed past the passengers, and began again
in the next carriage. You left after photographing the two drawings; later that day someone
took a picture of the artist naked to the waist, in front of the huge drawing of her own eyes. I
awoke from a dream in which my friend was knocking on my bedroom door. An open
umbrella had been placed upside down and filled with herbs from the field.
David Miller was born in Melbourne in 1950 and has lived in London since 1972. His publications include Pictures of Mercy: Selected Poems (Stride Publications), W.H. Hudson and the Elusive Paradise (Macmillan), Collected Poems (University of Salzburg Press), The Waters of Marah: Selected Prose 1973-1995 (Singing Horse Press) and Spiritual Letters (I-II) and other writings (Reality Street Editions).