He arrives in the courtyard with two cartons
of juice, each of which he’ll tip and drain
at one go in the heat, and a sack of food
for the roses. He looms over his tools,
blond and dusty as a stalk of ripe wheat,
surely someone’s prized lover. Centuries
bask among his hybrid teas, and he shakes
his capable handfuls of food into their beds...



Leslie Adrienne Miller at the Poetry Foundation

Leslie Adrienne Miller's home page

Leslie Adrienne Miller interviewed 

Writing for me is always torture. There is pleasure and satisfaction, but those are the results of having written something that pleases me, and I don't get that pleasure and satisfaction every time I write. Sometimes I can squander days chasing an idea only to have it seem, finally, silly or dull. Sometimes I even envy people with jobs that stay at the workplace! Mine comes with me everywhere, even to sleep, and though writing is torture, not writing is worse torture!