By Terry Jude Miller
Honorable Mention, Poetry, Create | Encounter 2021
before we can form words
before we have a mouth
we speak
in the vocabulary of the body
all of us here
all not here
all who are seen
and the unseen
all who are valued
all who are devalued
for lack of sentience
for redefinition into a mass of cells
for those--language betrays them
the rhyme of the scapula
the iambs of flesh
system shut down is initiated
what would have been eyes
what would have been the tongue
what would have been the arms
that reached for a mother
vacuumed away to the realm
of non-personhood
silencing its song
within cremation flames
Artist Statement:
Terry Jude Miller is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet from Houston, Texas. His work has been published in scores of publications including the Southern Poetry Anthology, the National Federation of State Poetry Societies’ “Encore,” the Texas Poetry Calendar, and more. He is a member of the Academy of American Poets and the Poetry Society of Texas. He is the creator of the Texas Poets Podcast.