By Kathee Miller
I wish I could say I was the kind of child who
was sporty, fearlessly hurling herself over a vault,
cartwheeling across the lawn, hitting a homerun—
hitting the ball at all might be worth saying.
I did get a Sharpshooter Rifle blue ribbon at sleep-away camp.
I wish I could tell you why I was so strangely good at that.
I wish I could say I walked the long seashore,
enchanted by the sound of waves, or hid deep
in the dense woods of New York under moonlight
as if it were my private world, as if called to it.
But my bedroom was the ticket, dancing to my 45s
the exercise, drawing and writing at my desk
the nature I traversed, reading books like a sport.
Bobbsey Twins on first base,
Black Beauty on second, The Snow Goose on third,
Emily Dickinson back at home plate.
I was Captain of my bedroom, my team—a solo affair.
I could hurl myself into imagination
and win first place.
Kathee Miller, a professor of depth psychology, has been writing as long as she can remember, from her origins in New York to California, bringing a deep embodied connection to music, art, memory and place. Various books—Pepper Lane Review, Rare Feathers, To Give Life a Shape, Women’s Mysteries—and journals contain her poetry. Also by this poet: "Searching for My Own Body"