John Sibley Williams
Imprint
There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting
as the imprint of an oar upon the water.
—Kate Chopin
For example: breath. For example: a father.
Or dawn chewing up fireflies, raking the stars
down to campfire ash. The child you’ll spend longer
grieving than raising, the sea’s
clumsy mirror, the churchlessness of raw earth.
For example: that inevitable
first footprint sunk into the riverclay of an un-
mapped country. Heaven or hell or just another
Sunday wandering the wild outskirts of a fenceless
field. How everything is entirely unknowable
until ripped from the earth & tasted. Spit back, sometimes
swallowed. I’m done trying to breathe
life back into imaginary dead things. My hands, for example.
How much more you must have expected from them.
John Sibley Williams is the editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies and the author of nine collections, including Disinheritance and Controlled Hallucinations. A seven-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Vallum Award for Poetry. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: The Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Sycamore Review, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Poet Lore, Saranac Review, Atlanta Review, TriQuarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Visit his website here: https://johnsibleywilliams.wordpress.com/
Return to January 2018 Edition
There are some people who leave impressions not so lasting
as the imprint of an oar upon the water.
—Kate Chopin
For example: breath. For example: a father.
Or dawn chewing up fireflies, raking the stars
down to campfire ash. The child you’ll spend longer
grieving than raising, the sea’s
clumsy mirror, the churchlessness of raw earth.
For example: that inevitable
first footprint sunk into the riverclay of an un-
mapped country. Heaven or hell or just another
Sunday wandering the wild outskirts of a fenceless
field. How everything is entirely unknowable
until ripped from the earth & tasted. Spit back, sometimes
swallowed. I’m done trying to breathe
life back into imaginary dead things. My hands, for example.
How much more you must have expected from them.
John Sibley Williams is the editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies and the author of nine collections, including Disinheritance and Controlled Hallucinations. A seven-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize, Confrontation Poetry Prize, and Vallum Award for Poetry. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: The Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Sycamore Review, Prairie Schooner, The Massachusetts Review, Poet Lore, Saranac Review, Atlanta Review, TriQuarterly, Columbia Poetry Review, Mid-American Review, Poetry Northwest, Third Coast, and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon. Visit his website here: https://johnsibleywilliams.wordpress.com/
Return to January 2018 Edition