What Rest Is

FROM THE ONLINE CHAPBOOK FLAMINGO PARK

What Rest Is

Miriam Levine

When you lie on your back

after waking and let the bed take you,

your dream slips away, and those

once important players whose words

you don’t remember? They also fade.

You hear the hum of the WhiteAir

that eases your breathing with a plume

of minute dissolving droplets. You watch

light play on the mountain and notice

the drifting clouds, the pigeons’ surrender

to the turning flock. Your hunger’s gone.

You who wanted Christmas every day,

your only gift now: to lift the pitcher

and rest its lip on the edge of the pot

and let water pour into the dry plant.

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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.