print previewback TYLER MILLS
Big Heart, Little Heart
I’m in a cabin built for a movie
where different parts will blow up
staged for different shots.
The closet glows
like heaven inside. Why do I
imagine an observer, the camera
lens waking like an eye?
Is it because in this dream,
I hear men in their work,
laying down wires to snake the foundation?
Authentic logs stack the walls
ready to thrum, tongued by flames.
I’ve cracked the window and wait
for an egg-like burial—which chamber,
which hall?
You hide in your work,
a woman once said to me
in front of an audience
as though I would vanish
like breath from a mirror
before her eyes. What did she know
about how I hid you,
as you strummed
the veins and foam
tidal in my belly
and fluttered like a silver fish?
A revision
of me, I used to think,
but as you tumbled
through my tissue
you all yours—yours—.
And whatever ghost that flicks
the curtain hem
catching the cooling breeze
in this room,
this studio, is me,
and I let it press its hands
heavy on my shoulders
like two slate slabs.
Step out of this place,
I almost hear. The air
settles for an explosion.
This way of letting things be.
All I want is a big heart.
If I could have one,
it’s not because my throat calls
from the flames
like the red bird too far away
to name in the smoke,
but because, for this
short time
your little heart
hums through the ruins
of me. 
Big Heart, Little Heart
Imaging
Rattlesnake
Tree