The Anteroom by Daniel Mills

When you walk through the anteroom
there are geraniums placed purposefully
on the entryway table, as if they 
have been waiting for you.

Did you notice them, the geraniums?
The color is a grayish blue, a slight mauve,
but something you don’t have 
quite the right word for.  

If you had stopped to notice, you may have thought, 
“Here is a thing that has arrested my attention, 
and for which I do not have language.”

The entryway table is made of granite,
marbled with so many different shades they cannot 
be counted, the many making up the whole.

There will come a time (unit of distance)
when you will walk through a different anteroom.

There, too, will be geraniums of a grayish blue,
a slight mauve. And there, too, will be an entryway 
table, marbled with many different shades of granite.

You may not notice these things then, either.
Or perhaps you will, looking upon them as if it were
the very first time, because you will not remember.

Daniel Mills is a poet and writer in Phoenix, AZ. He has received recognition from the Arizona Commission on the Arts, Phoenix Art Museum, and Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing. He is also a poetry reader for the literary and arts journal Passengers and reviews poetry for Cleaver.

17 March 2025