Amy Miller | When It Is Appropriate to Give a Thumbs-Up to a Baby | Poets Resist

Amy Miller’s full-length poetry collection The Trouble with New England Girls won the Louis Award from Concrete Wolf Press. Her writing has appeared in Barrow Street, Gulf Coast, Willow Springs, and ZYZZYVA, and her chapbooks include I Am on a River and Cannot Answer (BOAAT Press) and Rough House (White Knuckle Press). She lives in Ashland, Oregon.

Amy Miller’s Website.

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Also by Amy Miller: The Trouble with New England Girls I Am on a River and Cannot Answer White Noise Lullaby

Poets Resist
Edited by Michael Carter
August 16, 2019

Amy Miller

When It Is Appropriate to Give a Thumbs-Up to a Baby

When he takes his first step and his parents are alive to see it. When his parents, who are alive, just won $100 on a scratcher lottery ticket. When his mother, who is alive, was just named Employee of the Month. When you’re alone and in the late stages of dementia, muttering things like Some low-life stole my car. When his mother, who is alive, just lobbied for a law banning the sale of semi-automatic rifles. When his father, who is alive, slows his car down to let a family cross the street. When his parents, who are alive, buy him a children’s book about his heritage. Whenever you have done something to help the baby or his parents or their community. When you are not obsessed with writing yourself into the history book of tyrants. When his parents, who are alive, do anything ordinary, like wash the dishes or fall asleep in front of the TV or go shopping one morning, pushing the baby’s stroller down the crowded aisles. When you have not just encouraged someone to kill his parents. Anytime his parents are alive and allow you the honor of saying hello to their baby.

“When It Is Appropriate to Give a Thumbs-Up to a Baby” was written in response to the photo of Trump with the baby who was orphaned in the El Paso shooting this past week.