matthew miller

Matthew Miller teaches social studies, swings tennis rackets, and writes poetry—all hoping to create home. He and his wife live beside a dilapidating orchard in Indiana, where he tries to shape dead trees into playhouses for his four boys. His poetry has been featured in Whale Road Review, River Mouth Review, Earth & Altar and Ekstasis Magazine.

turned to salt

Genesis 19

Not limestone, which erodes like papyrus

washed over rocks or lost in the pockets 

of long robes. Not even gypsum or quartz.

Not hardhearted, sharp-sided or cold, but

slowly poisoning. Marling mountains,

crumbling cups leaking salt and dirt

into fresh springs, damming them into thirsty

seas. Strangers on these shores 

can’t find anything to drink. So many burn

where water is deep, kneading crusts 

without yeast, dry swallows. No confessions

of power, so it leeches out to surround

need. Used to ignite sulfur to drive away

snakes, now peek at their fangs, dripping jaws,

wide to bite anyone who won’t run from the public

square. There, angelic light over the cliffs

reveals the shadows on the plain. So blind

with greed they cannot find the door. We turn back

into the substance of our hearts, what we secret, 

what we brine. It is not death by fire.

It is a slow, half-hearted run,

legs stiff as pillars.

Read more of Matthew’s work in Solum Journal Volume II.