Thrush Poetry Journal
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John Sibley Williams
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Like Something Meant to be Looked Back On, Fondly

Foxtail and magnolia. Faulkner dividing his dead between brother
and  sister,  carpenter  and  priest.  Orchard-mess  of  early  spring
thawing  thistly  and  red.  Earth  again soft enough to swallow us
whole.  The  plan  was simple: wait and hope to see.  Wait among
books and apparitions until light breaks through them. Find a way
of speaking of stars without losing their dazzle. Our voices can’t be
caught  in the walls between farms forever.  Like bones.  There are
wars for this sort of thing. Wars as a boy I watched  from one side.
To  pass  the  season,  I’m  reading  infinite  narratives  of the same
simple story.  Almost  seeing  winter  clearly.  As  around me earth
begins to open its arms to oak. Shovels and moonlight. Broad,
white bulbs. Unfolding; mercy and indifference. 




John Sibley Williams is the editor of two Northwest poetry anthologies and the author of nine collections, including Controlled Hallucinations (2013) and Disinheritance (forthcoming 2016). A five-time Pushcart nominee and winner of the Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Nancy D. Hargrove Editors' Prize, and Vallum Award for Poetry, John serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: The Midwest Quarterly, december, Third Coast, Baltimore Review, Nimrod International Journal, Hotel Amerika, Rio Grande Review, Inkwell, Cider Press Review, Bryant Literary Review, RHINO, and various anthologies. He lives in Portland, Oregon.  Visit him at https://johnsibleywilliams.wordpress.com/




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