Why do we love Jesse Millner’s poems? Dip in just about anywhere in this new collection and you’ll see. But don’t be surprised if the duende follows you home.

Woke up this morning with a headache 
after dreaming of the Little Bighorn 
and dead bluecoats floating above 
a sea of brown creosote. Goodbye, 
George Armstrong Custer, I’ll see 
you and your arrow-pierced penis 
in another dream, but for now I’ve 
awakened in Florida, the flowered 
land, and I have a headache. Maybe 
it was my own eardrums the Sioux 
women pierced with awls last night 
so I might truly listen in 
the world that comes next? 

excerpted from "Confluence"