the sea is called / a body & the children
/ are still dying / so far from here / & here
sometimes / bones rearranged into / drowned
or dragged off skyward / biopsied or blood–
slicked pavement / at night / when the white
pines cut against an un- / white sky / history
moving its mouth / without speaking / my
daughters who are beginning / again to look
like other / like bullets exiting / our country’s
borrowed language / white / language / rage
& hue / what I cannot hold / of them I hold
so close the sea / still a body / aches & sings
its shame / aches & sings & washes clean
all evidence / that to be an echo means once
you wailed / once the sea & sky & white white
stars / & their bodies / still living inside us —
John Sibley Williams is the author of seven poetry collections, including Scale Model of a Country at Dawn (Cider Press Review Poetry Award), The Drowning House (Elixir Press Poetry Award), As One Fire Consumes Another (Orison Poetry Prize), Skin Memory (Backwaters Prize, University of Nebraska Press), and Summon (JuxtaProse Chapbook Prize). A twenty-six-time Pushcart nominee, John is the winner of numerous awards, including the Wabash Prize for Poetry, Philip Booth Award, Phyllis Smart-Young Prize, and Laux/Millar Prize. He serves as editor of The Inflectionist Review and founder of the Caesura Poetry Workshop series. Previous publishing credits include Best American Poetry, Yale Review, Verse Daily, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, and TriQuarterly.
