Linda Sonia Miller The Kingdom I. Power is a heavy cloak, without a realm, invisible. Reluctantly she rises from her throne, spends hours scrutinizing empty rooms, bicycles rusting in the shed, listening to the silence. At night, attempts conquests with silken robes and magic lotions. In restless sleep she dreams her subjects small again, consort, curly-haired and strong. Days too long, she uses dwindling powers reading minds and planning lives—to no effect. Once her realm was busy, full of news. Now her soldiers live on contentedly—tying their own shoes. In winter, she stares out her window, studies birds plumping feathers for warmth, nests in the sun long lost. Isn’t this what history teaches—all kingdoms end? II. Isn’t this what history teaches—all kingdoms end? In that frigid northeast realm, I slept with him in my bed beneath the eaves, and dreamed to the hum of my children’s breath, haunted creak of pines, mad screams of kittens trying to get in. Below the window—endless expanse of evergreen draped across the border. At dawn, he raced in bare feet across six feet of snow (as others walked on water), then left me to my own domain. Sometimes, I followed him into winter’s woods, studied tracks—padded, clawed, soled— small hints that we were not alone, my belly tense with joy and fear. My reasons for leaving are still unclear.
SIXFOLD POETRY SUMMER 2013
Linda Sonia Miller
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