Sabine Miller

Kashmir, 1989

If you want them to stop, hit them with your shoe, someone told me of the young men lounging in each others’ laps on the road between the shikara docks and downtown Srinagar. Lounging, that is, until a white woman comes ashore. But I’ve taken a self-defense class. I spin around to hurl my throatiest “NO!!!” in the men’s faces. They stop for a moment, surprised, then resume their pursuit, like a squadron of ants after pausing to decode a breeze.

Meanwhile, whispers of insurrection drift among the houseboats. How many of those men would leave to fight at the border?

        sex and death, 
             floating houses 
        at the top of the world 

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About the Author

Sabine Miller has settled in Northern California after a pandemic tour of Arizona and Southern California. She writes songs, long poems, and short poems and combinations of all three. Her latest publication, Cairns, is available as an e-book at Half Day Moon Press.

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