Rob Miles

Zones of Exclusion

Hold it lightly between your thumb and index finger so that the pin
slides slightly with each application, asking, “What do you feel?”

Where do we reckon
the deadening
starts?

Is it below
the navel, or somewhere
above

the heart?
What test could serve
beyond the neural

byways, the pins
in maps
of connection

or inaction, gathering
where paths
have numbed,

at which points
whole parts of us become
closed down to others?

Rob Miles is based in Yorkshire. Recent poems have appeared in Ambit, The Interpreter’s House, South Bank Poetry, Angle, Lunar Poetry and The Anthology of Age (The Emma Press). He’s won international competitions including the Philip Larkin 2014, judged by Don Paterson. Other poems have been placed, commended or shortlisted in competitions including the Bridport, Wenlock, Gregory O’Donoghue, York and Ilkley literature festivals, and three times in the National Poetry Competition.

Rob Miles

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