Double Vision

At Waffle House, they fired her on the spot:
“You talk too much!”
She’d told her customers
That “made” gets “mad” and “poet” goes to “pot”
Without the letter e. The “amateurs,”
She’d said, “inherit everything: the sand,
The stars, the world that only God possesses.”

While washing dishes with a bleeding hand,
She’d told them, “through ‘possession’s’ double ‘esses’
There’s a line that cleaves; things come apart;
‘Refrain’ means both ‘hold back’ and ‘go again’;
Things join in wholes of which they are a part.”

She “touched” the people. Was it such a sin?
Her broken pencil left a double line
On my tab, both legible as one design.

– Wilmer Mills
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“The Selected Poems of Wilmer Mills is a collection of the very best poetry written by an exceptional poetic talent who died much too young. Carefully chosen and edited by his wife…