Theological
The super worked all day
as a conductor on the subway
and in the evenings as a dominatrix.
She lived above me. I heard a mix
of pain and pleasure—impossible
to tell the difference in that studio full
of my own silence. On the front stoop
I ran into her clients, who drooped
in exhausted gratitude.
Once, I knocked.
When she cracked
the door I could see she’d been crying.
Behind her, a TV blued
the room; something was frying
on the stove. I had a small concern.
She told me, I’ll get to you in turn.
Copyright © 2025 by Wayne Miller. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on August 22, 2025, by the Academy of American Poets.
“For years I’ve told the anecdote of my super [from] back when I lived in New York in the late nineties. But recently it occurred to me that, formally speaking, her relationship to the rest of us in the building was godlike—and that, like any god (I must assume), she had her own emotional and psychological life which we never saw. As I was writing, I realized I wanted the poem to be sonnet-like, though it never managed to be a true sonnet.”
—Wayne Miller
Wayne Miller
Wayne Miller is the author of six poetry collections, including The End of Childhood (Milkweed Editions, 2025) and We the Jury: Poems (Milkweed Editions, 2021) , winner of the 2022 Colorado Book Award for Poetry.