{"id":11744,"date":"2021-11-30T00:19:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T00:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=11744"},"modified":"2021-12-31T18:42:49","modified_gmt":"2021-12-31T18:42:49","slug":"the-sidewinder-to-an-absent-friend-james-miller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/?p=11744","title":{"rendered":"THE SIDEWIDER: To an Absent Friend &#8211; James Miller"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One evening I thought to save the azaleas along my back fence.<br \/>\nUnraveled livid green vines from their choked branches.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nNext day I found a dime-wide blood-bloom on my left side, ridged<br \/>\nand itching. Soon I could wear no belt, no cloth or band round<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nmy tender waist. The blustered flesh under my two fingers reminded me<br \/>\nof compromised plastic. Burnt out, hard and cynical as a coup. After,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nI washed both hands with scalding soap, twice through. But the doctor<br \/>\ncould not name the beetle, tick, or spider whose bite had marked me,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nin defense of its interest. Pulling up trousers at the clinic, I felt<br \/>\nfor my wallet, heavy in its pocket. Bent groaning to tie my laces.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nThought of years ago, before the azaleas, before my marriage, a mild June<br \/>\nabroad in Manchester. I stood too soon for a Saturday stop on the metro line.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nWaited three minutes for the door to open. Counted each breath as coin,<br \/>\nin payment of private debt. My friend remained seated, holding a pair<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nof shrink-wrapped records\u2014 Lee Morgan, Roland Kirk. He turned<br \/>\nThe Sidewinder front to back. Squinted to read through the liner notes,<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nslowly. So that he would not see me leave the train, alone.<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\nJames Miller won the Connecticut Poet Award in 2020. His poems have appeared in<em> Cold Mountain Review, The Maine Review, Across the Margin, Lunch Ticket, Gravel, Juked, Meat for Tea, Main Street Rag, Plainsongs, The Atlanta Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Rogue Agent, Sweet Tree Review, Thin Air, The Inflectionist Review<\/em> and elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One evening I thought to save the azaleas along my back fence. Unraveled livid green vines from their choked branches. &nbsp; Next day I found a dime-wide blood-bloom on my left side, ridged and itching. Soon I could wear no belt, no cloth or band round &nbsp; my tender waist. The blustered flesh under my [&#038;hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11775,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[375],"class_list":["post-11744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry","tag-rain-steam-and-speed-by-turner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11744"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11798,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11744\/revisions\/11798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/narrativenortheast.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}