Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


LIES by JANE MILLER

First Line: PROBABLY NO ONE NOTICED THE MORNINGS I DISAPPEARED TO SIT
Last Line: THE LITTLE MOTHERS AND SISTERS.
Subject(s): LIES; MOTHERS & DAUGHTERS; POETRY & POETS; SISTERS;

Probably no one noticed the mornings I disappeared to sit
in the trees. The light swarmed my face while I recited
sonnets, each last line forlorn but with a tooth in it.
I felt like God, only smaller, flailing my body in and out
of the upper twigs. I lay in a spider's hammock,

the deafening noise of the leaves like Claire's eyelashes.
We were never two sisters sleeping uninterruptedly. Larvae
in their cold dresses. The tree dragged me down against
my will. I ran my hand defiantly through those leafy underarms,
like a bar of soap in the mouth of a child. A lie

is a cold hand with a light on it. It smacks the cowardly
yellow chrysalis and all the little enemies spill out, all
the little mothers and sisters.



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