First Tuesdays Presents David Mills

When: December 6, 2016
Where: Espresso 77 Café, 35-57 77th Street, Jackson Heights, NY 11372.
Time: 7:00 — 8:30 PM (open-mic sign up at 6:30)
Cost: $5 minimum purchase at the food counter.
More Information: Richard Jeffrey Newman

David Mills is the author of two collections, the small press bestseller The Dream Detective and a 2012 book prize finalist The Sudden Country. His work has appeared in Jubilat, Ploughshares, Fence, Callaloo and the Brooklyn Rail, to name a few. He has also received NYFA, Brio and Henry James fellowships. He lived for three years in Langston Hughes’ landmark Harlem home. Here’s a sample poem:

Feverish Lilacs

To dance a dance of windows bitten brown
to smoke a smile of nectarines and cash,
the chest belongs to seldom songs and lace
to famished sinews taut as tightrope’s grace.
Pretend, pretend consumes one’s daily bread
A knob–chipped starlight–sulking at your door,
when inks a fool, though seldom face-to-face
and words are meals we serve on paper plates.

Clutch all your Wednesdays when they start to sigh,
when weeks are wounds we stoop to cauterize.
Blindfold the lobe your ear has offered me:
a Florida whose coast abuts the east,
when sounds congeal like toothpaste on your teeth
and words are garlands, feverish, each to each.

This event was funded in part by Poets & Writers, Inc. through public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council.