Parked in wheelchairs, rocking chairs
or on a weathered bench,
like rows of sea birds
along a wharf
sit the generically named.
White tufts of dandelion hair
withered, weeks old apple faces,
oak tree fingers
and rainy eyes,
they wait.
Pulling me toward the door
she prances forward
on child legs in child-shiny shoes
and splits the sea.
Rows of grayed sunflowers
dip in our direction, sunturning.
“Hello” she says
and in that light
they recall
First loves
Being seen.
A speech-language therapist recently retired from 40 years of teaching literacy skills to dyslexic children, Millman is “relatively new to publishing poetry although not to writing it. I have several poems either published or due to come out in various literary journals,” she says.
