Last night in bed
I mouthed a prayer
of my own composition.
It sounded offhand, it was carelessly
addressed, it twisted my meaning
entirely, it left an ache,
I didn’t know what I was doing.
So I took down my yellowed copy
of French With Pictures
by the late literary critic I. A. Richards
and I put my petition
into soft French words.
—Sara Miller, opening three strophes to “Nocture” in Poetry (vol. CCI, no. 4, January 2013)
Wild Nothing / "Only Heather"
sometimes, when I am alone, I sing this song out loud but insert my name for “heather”
a girl can dream…
