Day 27, Poet 27: Amy Miller

Worried Man Blues
 
Halfway through the song,
the dog bumped
his big black
pit bull head
against my leg
and I stopped--
small rest
between the banjo
and the guitar player
who never sits down.
My ragged chords caught
their breath, the bow
dropped and turned
and pressed against the fiddle,
freeing one hand
to hold that warm,
soft ear
with its own dark valley
of music.
 
 
Previously published in Gold Man Review.

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Amy Miller’s poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Rattle, Willow Springs, and ZYZZYVA. Her chapbooks include I Am on a River and Cannot Answer (BOAAT Press) and Rough House (White Knuckle Press), and she won the Cultural Center of Cape Cod National Poetry Competition, judged by Tony Hoagland, the Jack Grapes Poetry Prize from Cultural Weekly, and the Earl Weaver Baseball Writing Award. She works as the publications project manager for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and blogs at writers-island.blogspot.com.