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Miriam Levine is the author of Forget about Sleep, her sixth poetry collection, winner of the 2023 Laura Boss Narrative Poetry Award. Another collection, The Dark Opens, was chosen for the Autumn House Poetry Prize.  Other books include: Devotion, a memoir; In Paterson, a novel. Her work has appeared in American Poetry Review, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares. Levine, winner of a Pushcart Prize, is a fellow of the NEA and a grantee of the Massachusetts Artists Foundation. She lives in Florida and New Hampshire. For more information about her work, please go to miriamlevine.com.

High C

Miriam Levine

This spring your whole inner life is Little Richard.
You surrender to his octave-jumping high
notes as he shakes out the fringes of his
glittering coat. His boots glitter, too. How
narrow, those feet. And those wigs! How
full. “Is that your hair?” he’s asked. “It’s
mine. I bought it.” Decade by decade,
you see him age but are convinced
he beats back time. And always his
beauty endures. Bare-chested under
his cape, he strolled through Heathrow.
“Man drop his cup of coffee when he see
I give him the peace sign.” Now he’s
streaming through earbuds into your brain,
And you know I’ll always be your slave
Until I’m buried, buried in my grave . . .
Your step is easy as you walk south
on Meridian Avenue to your
allotment in the Victory Garden
and the blooming zinnia called
“Zowie,” streaked crimson and gold.
You keep time with his time, and the blooms
also seem to sway with the beat.
At night you see him preach about his Jesus;
and you watch his funeral. He believed
he would live forever with Jesus.
You confess you read the auction catalogue
of his things. You don’t want his flaming
clothes but you covet his passport,
the photo of him with the impossibly
high pompadour and ink-line moustache,
page after page stamped with seals
of countries he entered and never left.

— From Forget about Sleep © Miriam Levine

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