Poetry by Casey Mills

On Mountaintops, Thundering

I will say this

you caffeine-soaked

accomplishment junkies:

Hear me!

You rave around my head

like ravenous wasps

demanding I beat this body

aching with fatigue

Get up!

Work harder!

This abuser,

now working from within

On mountaintops, thundering

I beat my chest

and say to you, Begone!

for I have turned to the Lord

no longer ashamed

of basking in His face

when He sees fit

to turn it towards me

be it a sunny day

or the miracle presence

of the saints I love:

Begone, I say!

Let your incessant busy

pass by like false fire

for now I rest

in glory, and glory, and glory

The Pew

I asked the quiet couple from out of town

if I could sit beside them in the pews

after some confusion about where to move

a box of tissues, they slid over and

I felt the warmth they left behind

and remembered other ways we feel

warmth: a coin given from a hip pocket

a coat you didn’t ask for but needed

suddenly placed around your shoulders

a palm holding your cheek

and considered the way this warmth travels

across years, and this is why

some places feel like holy buttered toast

like this pew, warmed by a quiet couple

and all the other saints that came before them

Casey Mills writes poems early in the morning while his kids sleep and the birds wake. He lives in Northern California by a creek he spends a lot of time with. His poetry has been published in Heart of Flesh, Amethyst Review, Ekstasis, and Solid Food Press.