rewind
john sibley williams
now that the horses have unbolted, the barn re-
built to approximate a barn that’s never been
cindered, the daughter still here now meant to
dress the part of a gone son & tend whatever
of the field needs tending, this rougher draft of
heaven a different intimacy, a crueler distance,
everything waiting to be a burden—or well-
spring of pride, depending on the worth placed
on smaller sufferings, even the stars that hold
the same stories spoken so slow these days no
one can tell where they begin or end—or if it
matters they’re still falling beautifully onto the
aluminum roof, just pooling there uselessly
reflecting, the same prayers that make a young
girl cringe, something about her body a gospel
or receptacle of love; now that the horses un-
familiar with fire—or who’ve pushed those
memories far back into myth, into faith things
erase for a reason—brush their tongues across
a cleansed river & drink & drink & gently hurt
John Sibley Williams is the author of As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize, 2019), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press, 2019), Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize, 2019), Disinheritance, and Controlled Hallucinations. A nineteen-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, American Literary Review Poetry Contest, Laux/Millar Prize, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, Janet B. McCabe Poetry Prize, and others. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and works as a poetry editor and literary agent. Previous publishing credits include: The Yale Review, Midwest Quarterly, Southern Review, 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.
