Jim
FROM THE ONLINE CHAPBOOK FLAMINGO PARK
Jim
Miriam Levine
When Jim plays the clarinet, his torso lengthens,
his fingers sure on the tone holes,
on the keys. His lips warm on the reed,
he sways in a dance like the dance
I once saw on an Attic amphora,
the son of Aphrodite watering his
mother’s garden, water pouring from the jar
like the chaconne pouring from the clarinet’s bell—
but why the Ancients? Isn’t it enough, Jim’s
rough thatch of hair, small bare boy’s foot
beating out the rhythm on the cold floor,
Jim out of breath at the finish?
Flamingo Park
Miriam Levine
2026
Flamingo Park is Miriam Levine’s gift to you. The setting of this online chapbook is the Flamingo Park neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida. The themes, for the most part, are love, death, joy—laughter and tears—the longstanding themes of lyric poetry.