James Miller

Heat

We sit
to study the bay.

Its stink
surges,
sinks.

I promise
to speak

only

when
new words

come.

Remember
that heat

works slowly,

alongside light—both
want

to mark us.

James Miller is a native of the Texas Gulf Coast. He is published in Best Small Fictions 2021 (Sonder Press) and in the Marvelous Verses anthology (Daily Drunk Press). Recent pieces have appeared or are forthcoming in The McNeese Review, Kissing Dynamite, On the Seawall, Barzakh, Press Pause, Coal Hill Review, The Shore, Door is a Jar, West Trade Review and Tiny Molecules. Follow on Twitter @AndrewM1621. Website: jamesmillerpoetry.com.