Gather. Discover. Cultivate.
Tonight you will dream yourself into a highwire act
free of goblins prowling the edges
unraveling the net.
You will wake to winter’s striped sky
last seen when the world was still green.
You will robe your fingers
in silver
gloss your lips
with greeting
free a trickle of light
from the rusted tap
you have to use a wrench
to turn on.
The smallest circle
then the next
circling into a ring
of circles
twirling round
upon round
spiraling themselves
dizzy
giving shape to a fractal
kaleidoscope
tracing an arc
along another turn.
I wonder if you, at the back of your throat,
chew the cud of us.
Flavor gone bland, molars
working to extract some vestigial molecule of nourishment.
Does its bulk retain any memory of sunlight
at the center of the blade?
for the times we ignore the price tag, may we forgive ourselves
He strides up the steps
in his purple velvet coat,
trailing the welcome stink
of burnt sugar
and rosin,
a gait so light even the oldest boards
hold their breath.
He closes the distance
before you clock his game,
pulls a quarter from behind your ear.
Old shortcuts lead to dead ends. Minor annoyances to major road blocks. Drifting off during the boring parts of class, crumpled papers forgotten in the bottom of the backpack, goofing off in the hallway. D grades. Closed doors.
As he fails, his world shrinks.
Only the first quarter of his first year of middle school, and hard lessons are giving my boy’s psyche a good scraping.
Bright smile and thick glasses. He slips the frames into a pocket while striding over to claim proximity.
Bigger than I’ve been since pregnancy. Stripped of makeup, wrinkled and pimpled and rank with sweat.
Side planks face to face.
I’ve known his name exactly three days.
Here we are grinning like teenagers and losing count.
Not done yet.
Dedication to each small climb, each tiny triumph. Here an apex.
A falling away.
Even on Skyline Drive, you’ve got to pull over and step out. Otherwise it’s just another commute.
How to write a poem
is one thing you thought you’d never forget
but after a while even the wobble escapes you.
Wheels warp, refuse to align.
Months of days passing the place you stashed it
before you notice it’s gone.
Stolen? At first it seems so, a ragged hole
the size of your fist
in the door just below the lock.
When you can’t have what you want,
then want what you have.
That’s what They say anyway.
To me Their Zen feels too close to defeat,
and also, what about expanding?
Horizons, after all –
They have opinions on those too.
Collapsing onto the bed, he moans
“I don’t feel good.”
Every night he doesn’t feel good.
What would Good feel like? I want to ask.
The absence of pain?
A month of snow days?
Maybe this Good lays a path and clears debris,
one smooth downhill grade.
Or better still, buoyancy
as if weightless
on water cooled by twilight
and the wings of loons
dipping low.
Eyes like a growling. Eyes like a treasure box. Storefront reflection, candid photograph, inverted glint on spectacle glass.
Eyes tethering me to corporeality.
They write their stories on my body. Make their confessions on my body. Cast the runes and decode the signs and plan their fortune on my body. Ink the map of their nightmares on my body. X the spot of their rescue on my body.
Shannon E. Williams 